UC-NRLF 


Tbfc, 


GIFT   OF 


H 


SONNETS  FROM  THE  TROPHIES 
OF    JOSE -MARIA    DE    HEREDIA 


SONNETS 

FROM  THE  TROPHIES  OF 

JOSE-MARIA  DE 

HEREDIA 

RENDERED  INTO  ENGLISH  BY 

EDWARD  ROBESON  TAYLOR 

FIFTH  EDITION 


PRINTED 

FOR  THE  AUTHOR 

SAN  FRANCISCO 

1913 


Copyright,  1897,  by 
Edward  Robeson  Taylor 

Copyright,  1898,  by 
Edward  Robeson  Taylor 

Copyright,  1902,  by 
Edward  Robeson  Taylor 

Copyright,  1906,  by 
Edward  Robeson  Taylor 

Copyright,  1913,  by 
Edward  Robeson  Taylor 


Printed  by 

Taylor,  Nash  &  Taylor 
San  Francisco 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 
LEVI    COOPER    LANE 

THESE  VERSIONS 

ARE  REVERENTLY 

DEDICATED 


PREFATORY  NOTE  TO  THE  FOURTH 
EDITION 

JL  HE  Sonnets  here  presented  are  versions  of 
all  those  contained  in  Heredia's  "Les  Tro- 
phees."  Since  the  first  publication  of  these  ver- 
sions I  have  made  many  changes  in  them,  in 
the  interest  of  a  truer  rendering  and  a  better 
art,  while  some  of  the  sonnets  have  been  almost 
entirely  recast.  That  such  art  as  Heredia's  can 
best  be  exemplified  in  the  French  may  be  con- 
ceded; but  at  the  same  time  it  must  likewise 
be  conceded  that  in  no  language  has  the  son- 
net reached  greater  variety  or  force,  or  beauty 
for  the  matter  of  that,  than  in  the  English. 
Indeed,  of  all  the  forms  borrowed  from  the 
French  and  the  Italian,  the  sonnet  form,  as 
has  been  well  said,  seems  to  be  the  only  one  that 
has  become  deeply  rooted  in  our  literary  soil. 
That  the  task  of  representing  Heredia's  sonnets 
acceptably  in  the  English  is  truly  Herculean 
may  also  be  conceded;  but  the  very  difficulty  is 
a  challenge  to  those  who  love  the  sonnet  form 
and  delight  to  work  in  it;  and  even  partial  suc- 
cess in  such  an  endeavor  is  almost  a  victory. 

In  the  sonnets  of  "Les  Trophees"  the  poet 
never  employs  more  than  two  rhymes  in  the 
octave,  his  rhyme  being,  without  exception,  ar- 
ranged as  follows:  abba-abba.  In  the  sestet  he 
allows  himself  more  liberty,  about  two-thirds 
of  the  sonnets  having  the  rhyme  arrangement 


IX 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

as  follows:  aabcbc.  The  rhyme  of  the  others  is 
distributed  in  a  variety  of  ways,  the  favorite 
arrangement  being  aabccb.  It  is  worthy  of 
note  that  the  rhyme  arrangement  of  the  sestet 
abcabc,  which  is  so  frequently  found  in  the 
English-written  sonnet,  is  employed  by  him 
but  once.  In  several  instances  he  uses  but  two 
rhymes  in  the  sestet,  and  occasionally  he  closes 
it  with  a  couplet.  In  the  versions  here  pre- 
sented the  form  of  the  originals,  including  the 
rhyme  arrangement,  has  been  strictly  followed. 
In  several  of  the  versions  but  two  rhymes  in 
the  sestet  have  been  employed  instead  of  the 
three  of  the  original;  but  in  these  instances  the 
arrangement  of  the  rhyme  is  the  same  as  that 
of  the  original — that  is,  the  lines  rhyme  in  the 
same  way,  only  fewer  rhymes  are  employed. 
All  of  these  versions  are  written  in  the  pen- 
tameter in  which  the  English  sonnet  is  almost 
universally  written. 

For  a  penetrating  and  masterly  study  of  the 
sonnet  work  of  Heredia  the  reader  is  referred 
to  the  article  of  J.  C.  Bailey  in  the  September, 
1898,  number  of  "The  Fortnightly  Review," 
which  is  now  to  be  found  in  his  book  entitled 
"The  Claims  of  French  Poetry,"  while  Ed- 
mund Gosse,  in  his  "Critical  Kit-Kats,"  admir- 
ably reviews  the  work  of  the  poet  and  the  char- 
acteristics of  his  style.  Since  Heredia's  death 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

(October  3,  1905),  many  articles  have  been 
written  about  him  in  Europe  and  America, 
with  no  dissent,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  the  matter 
of  the  high  and  unique  quality  of  his  sonnets. 
Since  the  publication  of  the  third  edition, 
now  out  of  print,  I  have  again  with  great  care 
gone  over  the  work  with  the  necessary  result 
of  making  a  number  of  changes  and  of  adding 
some  more  notes.  I  dare  not  say,  even  now, 
that  my  work  is  final.  My  feeling  in  this  regard 
is  fairly  well  represented  by  the  sonnets  en- 
titled "The  Passion  for  Perfection"  and  "The 
Music  of  Words,"  copies  of  which  I  have  ven- 
tured to  print  in  this  volume,  and  which,  as 
there  placed,  I  trust  will  not  be  considered  by 
the  judicious  as  an  impertinence. 

E.  R.  T. 
San  Francisco 
September  23,  1906. 


XI 


PREFATORY  NOTE  TO  THE  FIFTH 
EDITION 

OINCE  the  passing  out  of  print  of  the  fourth 
edition  of  these  versions  the  author  has  been 
constrained, — moved  thereto  by  the  desire  to 
make  them  as  perfect  as  possible, —  to  go  over 
them  once  more.  The  result  has  been  the  mak- 
ing of  some  changes,  which  he  trusts  the  com- 
petent will  look  upon  as  improvements. 

E.  R.  T. 
San  Francisco 
September  24,  1913. 


Xll 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Prefatory  Note  to  the  Fourth  Edition  ix 

Prefatory   Note   to  the    Fifth   Edition          .         .         .  xii 

The  Passion  for  Perfection             ....  xix 

The  Music  of  Words         ....           .  xxi 

To  Jose-Maria  de  Heredia 1 

GREECE  AND  SICILY 
Oblivion .5 

Hercules  and  the  Centaurs            .               .'.  1 

Nemea 9 

Stymphalus 10 

Nessus .  11 

The  Centauress          ......  12 

Centaurs  and  Lapithae  .          .          .          .          .13 

Flight  of  the  Centaurs       .           .          .          .           .  14 

The  Birth  of  Aphrodite 15 

Jason  and  Medea           ......  16 

The  Thermodon 17 

Artemis  and  the  Nymphs              .        .        .  19 

Artemis     .            .          .          .          .          .          .          .  21 

The  Chase 22 

Nymphaea            .....  23 

Pan 24 

The  Bath  of  the  Nymphs 25 

The  Vase 27 

Ariadne    .........  28 

Bacchanal 29 

The  Awakening  of  a  God 30 

The  Magician 31 

The  Sphinx .32 

Marsyas         ........  33 


Xlll 


CONTENTS 


Perseus  and  Andromeda 35 

•     Andromeda  Given  to  the  Monster       ...  37 
Perseus  and  Andromeda         .          .          .          .          .38 

The  Ravishment  of  Andromeda           ...  39 

Epigrams  and  Bucolics 41 

The  Goatherd 43 

The  Shepherds 44 

Votive  Epigram         ......  45 

Funerary  Epigram         .          .          .          .          .          .46 

The  Shipwrecked  One 47 

The  Prayer  of  the  Dead          ...           .          .  48 

The  Slave 49 

The  Husbandman 50 

To  Hermes  Criophorus      .          .          .          .          .  51 

The  Youthful  Dead 52 

Regilla 53 

The  Runner  .  *  .          .  .          .          .54 

The  Charioteer 55 

On  Othrys 56 

ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

For  Virgil's  Ship 59 

A  Little  Villa 60 

The  Flute 61 

To  Sextius    ........  62 

The  God  of  the  Gardens 63 

I.     Come  not!   Away! 65 

II.     Respect,  O  Traveler,  .          .          .          .66 

III.  Ho,  you  sly  imps !     .....  67 

IV.  Enter.  Fresh  coated  have  my  pillars  been,     .  68 
V.     How  cold !  69 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


Tepidarium    ....           ....  70 

Tranquillus        .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .71 

Lupercus       ........  72 

The  Trebia 73 

After  Cannae 74 

To  a  Triumpher          .......  75 

Antony  and  Cleopatra            ....  77 

The  Cydnus  .          .          .  .          .          .          .79 

Evening  of  Battle 80 

Antony  and  Cleopatra 81 

Epigraphic  Sonnets 83 

The  Vow 85 

The  Spring                  j 86 

The  Beech-Tree  God 87 

To  the  Divine  Mountains             ....  88 

The  Exiled                                                                            .  89 


THE  MIDDLE  AGE  AND  THE  RENAISSANCE 

A  Church  Window 93 

Epiphany            ........  94 

The  Wood-worker  of  Nazareth         .          .          .          .  95 

A  Medal 96 

The  Rapier 97 

After  Petrarch 98 

On  the  Book  of  Loves  of  Pierre  de  Ronsard      .          .  99 

The  Beautiful  Viole 100 

An  Epitaph            .                     101 

Gilded  Vellum 102 

The  Dogaressa 103 

On  the  Old  Bridge 104 

The  Old  Goldsmith                                                                  .  105 


XV 


CONTENTS 


The  Sword 106 

To  Claudius  Popelin 107 

Enamel 108 

Dreams  of  Enamel  .....  .  109 

The  Conquerors          .        .        .        .        .        .111 

The  Conquerors 113 

Youth 114 

The  Tomb  of  the  Conqueror  .  .  .  .115 
In  the  Time  of  Charles  the  Fifth  Emperor  .  .116 
The  Ancestor  .  .  .  .  .  .  .117 

To  a  Founder  of  a  City 118 

To  the  Same          .          .          .          .  .          .          .119 

To  a  Dead  City  .          .          .  .          .          .        120 

THE  ORIENT  AND  THE  TROPICS 

Vision  of  Khem    I.      Mid-day.  The  air  burns;     .        123 

II.     The  moon  on  Nilus  sheds  resplendent  light ;       124 

III.     And  the  crowd  grows,  .  .          .          .        125 

The  Prisoner     .          .          .  .          •          •          •    127 

The  Samurai  .          .          .          .          .          •          .128 

The  Daimio 129 

Flowers  of  Fire      .          .          .  .          .  .        130 

The  Century  Flower 131 

The  Coral  Reef 132 

NATURE  AND  DREAM 

The  Antique  Medal 135 

The  Funeral 136 

The  Vintage 137 

Siesta                                                                                           .  138 


XVI 


CONTENTS 


The  Sea  of  Brittany 139 

A  Painter               141 

Brittany .  142 

A  Flowery  Sea     . 143 

Sunset 144 

Star  of  the  Sea 145 

The  Bath 146 

Celestial  Blazon 147 

Armor 148 

A  Rising  Sea 149 

A  Sea  Breeze 150 

The  Shell 151 

The  Bed 152 

The  Eagle's  Death 153 

More  Beyond 154 

The  Life  of  the  Dead 155 

To  the  Tragedian  E.  Rossi  .          .          .          .156 

Michelangelo 157 

On  a  Broken  Marble 158 

Heredia  Dead 161 

Notes: 

Nemea 165 

Centaurs  and  Lapithae  .          .          .          .          .165 

The  Awakening  of  a  God 165 

The  Magician       .          .          .          .          .          .          .165 

Marsyas  .......        166 

Regilla 167 

The  Charioteer  .          .          .          .  .        169 

For  Virgil's  Ship 171 

To  Sextius 172 

God  of  the  Gardens— V  .    172 


XV11 


CONTENTS 


Tepidarium       .          .          .          .          .          .          .174 

Tranquillus 174 

Lupercus  .          .          .          .          .          .          .175 

After  Cannae 176 

The  Cydnus 176 

Antony  and  Cleopatra  .          .          .          .          .176 

Epigraphic  Sonnets          ,  .          .          .          .          .177 

A  Medal 177 

The  Beautiful  Viole 179 

The  Conquerors 182 

The  Ancestor   . 183 

To  a  Dead  City 183 

Vision  of  Khem  —  II 184 

The  Samurai 187 

The  Daimio 187 

The  Century  Flower 187 

The  Funeral 189 

Brittany      . 189 

Flowery  Sea 190 

Armor 190 

Rising  Sea  .          .          .          .          .          .190 

On  a  Broken  Marble 191 

HerediaDead  192 


XV111 


THE  PASSION  FOR 
PERFECTION 

VvHAT  deep  desires  are  ours,  what  searching  pains, 
To  find  the  word  we  so  supremely  need; 
To  frame  a  diction  worthy  Art's  great  meed, 
That  winged  with  music  bears  immortal  strains! 

Our  thought  when  bound  in  rhythm  oft  contains 
Such  teasing  imperfections,  that  we  feed 
The  hours  in  their  cure,  then  inly  bleed, 
For  fear  some  vexing  blemish  yet  remains. 

Dear  nymph,  Perfection,  how  thou  dost  elude 
Thy  fond  pursurer! — seeming  near,  then  far, 
Enticing  ever  with  allurement  sweet, 

Till  after  trial  many  a  time  renewed, 
He  sees  thee  blaze  a  solitary  star 
In  some  high,  inaccessible  retreat. 


XIX 


THE  MUSIC  OF  WORDS 

(Tennyson  said  in  one  of  his  talks  that  "People  do 
not  understand  the  music  of  words.") 

JL  O  give  to  Beauty  her  immortal  meed 
As  gemmed  she  lies  immaculately  fair; 
To  paint  the  hopes  that  end  in  fell  despair, 
While  tones  mellifluous  every  passion  feed; 

To  follow  Fancy's  fairy  troop  that  lead 

Though  vales  of  Dream  embathed  in  drowsed  air, 

Or  on  Imagination's  heights  to  dare, 

What  nectar-hearted,  golden  words  we  need — 

Such  words  as  thine,  thou  muse-encrowned  one, 
Who,  like  some  inextinguishable  sun, 
Shall  light  the  heavens  of  man  forevermore; 

Such  words  as  Homer  sent,  long,  long  ago, 
With  music  winged,  through  Hellas'  heart  of  woe, 
Or  such  as  deathless  make  Heredia's  lore. 


XXI 


"All  ancient  glory  sleeps,  and  men  forget, 
Unless  there  comes  the  poet  with  his  art, 
The  flower  of  arts;  and  pouring  from  his  tongue 
A  mingled  stream  of  wisdom,  verse  and  song, 
Records  great  deeds  in  strains  that  never  die." 
(From  Pindar's  sixth  Isthmian  Ode 
as  translated  by  Hugh  Seymour  Tremenheere.) 

"For  the  thing  that  one  hath  well  said  goeth  forth 
with  a  voice  unto  everlasting;  over  fruitful  earth  and 
beyond  the  sea  hath  the  light  of  fair  deeds  shined  un- 
quenchable forever." 

(From  Pindar's  third  Isthmian   Ode 
as   translated  by   Ernest   Myers.) 

"Les  dieux  eux-memes  meurent, 
Mais  les  vers  soverains 

Demeurent 
Plus  fort   que  les   airains." 

(Theophile   Gautier.) 

The   Cities   vanish ;    one   by    one 
The   glories  fade   that   paled   the   sun ; 
At   Time's  continuous,   fateful   call 
The  palaces  and  temples  fall; 
While   Heroes  do  their   deeds  and  then 
Sink  down  to  earth  as  other  men. 
Yet,  let  the  Poet's  mind  and  heart 
But  touch  them  with  the  wand  of  Art, 
And  lo!  they  rise  and  shine  once  more 
In  greater  splendor  than  before. 


XX111 


TO  JOSE-MARIA  DE  HEREDIA 


'Twas  eagle-winged,  imperial  Pindar  who 
Sent  down  the  ages  on  the  tide  of  song 
The  thought  that  only  to  the  years  belong 
Those  deeds  that  win  immortal  poet's  due. 

Still  rise  his  crowned  athletes  to  the  view, 

On  his  unwearied  pinions  borne  along; 

Still  shepherd's  pipe  and  lay  sound  sweet  and  strong 

As  when  Theocritus  attuned  them  true. 

And  so  through  thee  the  feats  of  heroes  great, 
The  hues  of  life  of  other  times  than  ours, 
With  such  refulgence  in  thy  sonnets  glow, 

That  in  the  splendor  of  their  new  estate, 

They  there,  with  deathless  Art's  supernal  powers, 

Shall  o'er  the  centuries  enchantment  throw. 


San  Francisco, 
May  31,  1897. 


GREECE  AND  SICILY 


OBLIVION 

OBLIVION 

i  HE  Temple's  ruins  all  the  headland  strew, 
Upon  whose  tawny  height  brass  heroes  wane, 
With  marble  goddesses,  whose  glory  vain 
The  lonely  grass  shrouds  tenderly  from  view. 

Only  at  times  a  careless  herdsman,  who, 
Leading  his  drove  to  drink,  pipes  an  old  strain 
Which  floods  the  heavens  to  the  very  main, 
Shows  his  dark  form  against  the  boundless  blue. 

The  Earth,  sweet  mother  to  the  Gods  of  old, 
At  springtime  vainly,  eloquently  weaves 
Round  the  rent  capital  acanthus  leaves; 

But  man,  no  more  by  ancient  dreams  controlled, 
Hears  without  tremor,  in  the  midnight  deep, 
The  grieving  Sea  for  her  lost  sirens  weep. 


HERCULES  AND  THE  CENTAURS 


HERCULES  AND  THE 

NEMEA 

OINCE  the  lone  Tamer  in  the  forest  drear 
Made  bold  to  search  for  every  frightful  trace, 
Resounding  roars  have  told  the  fierce  embrace. 
Now  sinks  the  sun,  and  silence  lulls  the  ear. 

The  herdsman  toward  Tirynthus  flees  in  fear 
Through  thicket,  brier  and  brake  with  quickening  pace, 
And  sees,  with  eyes  bulged  from  their  orbits'  space, 
The  tawny  monster  at  the  wood's  edge  rear. 

He  screams.  He  Nemea's  awful  terror  saw, 
That  'gainst  the  blood-red  sky  its  armed  jaw, 
Disheveled  mane  and  tusks  malignant  shows ; 

For  then  mysterious  twilight  creeping  in, 
Great  Hercules,  round  him  the  floating  skin, — 
Man  blent  with  beast, — a  grewsome  hero  grows. 


See  note  p.  165. 


HSRCULES  AND -THE  CENTAURS 

STYMPHALUS 

1  HE  birds  in  swarming  thousands  far  and  near, 
As  he  descends  the  foul  declivity, 
Sudden  as  squall  on  mighty  pinion  flee 
Above  the  dismal,  agitated  mere. 

Some,  flying  low,  in  network  cross  nor  fear 

To  brush  the  face  oft  kissed  by  Omphale; 

Whereat,  his  victor  shaft  adjusting,  he, 

Archer  superb,  strides  through  the  marsh-reeds  drear. 

Thenceforth,  by  arrows  riddled,  the  frighted  cloud 
Pours  down  a  horrid  flood  with  screamings  loud 
And  streaked  with  fiery  bolts  of  murderous  levin. 

At  last  the  Sun  across  the  thick  cloud  sees, 
Through  openings  made  by  shafts  of  Hercules, 
The  blood-drenched  Hero  smiling  up  to  Heaven. 


10 


HERCULES  AND  THE  CENTAURS 

NESSUS 

VvHEN  I  of  life  had  but  my  brothers'  share, 
The  better  things  or  deeper  ills  unknown, 
My  roving  rule  Thessalian  hills  did  own, 
Whose  icy  torrents  laved  my  ruddy  hair. 

Thus  in  the  sun  I  grew,  free,  happy,  fair; 
And  day  or  night  nought  vexed  me,  save  alone 
When  to  my  nostrils'  eager  breath  was  blown 
The  ardent  scent  of  the  Epirus  mare. 

But  since  the  mighty  archer's  spouse  I've  seen 
Smiling  triumphantly  his  arms  between, 
My  hairs  are  bristled  and  desires  torment; 

For  that  some  God,  in  his  accursed  plan, 
Has  in  my  loins'  too  feverous  blood  all  blent 
The  lust  of  stallion  with  the  love  of  man. 


11 


HERCULES  AND  THE  CENTAURS 


THE  CENTAURESS 


vjF  old,  through  torrents,  valleys,  woods,  and  rocks, 
The  far-famed  troop  of  myriad  Centaurs  strayed; 
Upon  their  sides  the  sun  with  shadows  played  ; 
Their  dark  hair  mingled  with  our  flaxen  locks. 

Choked  are  the  caves,  and  summer's  grass  but  mocks, 
For  lonely  now  we  press  its  springing  blade  ; 
And  times  there  are  when  in  the  night's  warm  shade 
The  stallion's  distant  cry  my  bosom  shocks. 

For  the  great  sons  to  whom  the  Cloud  gave  birth, 
Diminishing  day  by  day  upon  the  earth, 
Forsake  us  and  fair  woman  madly  try. 

Such  passion  brings  us  to  the  brute's  base  fare, 
For  it  wrings  from  us  only  neighing  cry, 
While  they  in  us  desire  but  the  mare. 


12 


HERCULES  AND  THE  CENTAURS 

CENTAURS  AND  LAPITHJE 

JN  OW  rushes  to  the  feast  the  nuptial  tide  — 
Centaurs  and  warriors  drunken,  bold  and  fair; 
And  flesh  heroic,  in  the  torches'  glare, 
Immingles  with  the  Cloud's  sons'  tawny  hide. 

Jests,  tumult . . .  Screams  . . .  'Gainst  black-haired 

breast  theBride, 

Her  purple  rended,  struggles  in  despair, 
To  hoofs'  hard  blows  the  bronze  rings  through  the  air, 
While  crashes  down  the  table  in  its  pride. 

Then  one  upsprings  to  whom  the  mightiest  bow; 
A  lion's  muffle  frowns  upon  his  brow, 
Bristling  with  hairs  of  gold.  'Tis  Hercules. 

Whereat,  from  end  to  end  of  that  vast  space, 

Cowed  by  the  fury  of  his  wrathful  face, 

The  monstrous,  guilty  troop,  loud  snorting,  flees. 


See  note  p.  165. 


13 


HERCULES  AND  THE  CENTAURS 

FLIGHT  OF  THE  CENTAURS 

STRAIGHT  for  the  Mount  where  they  may  safely  rest, 
Glutted  with  slaughter  and  revolt,  they  fly; 
Fears  lash  them  on,  they  feel  'tis  now  to  die, 
And  every  air  with  lion  is  impressed. 

They  trample  newt  and  hydra,  and  they  breast 
Ravines,  woods,  torrents,  as  they  hurry  by, 
Where  now  appears  against  the  distant  sky 
Olympus',  Ossa's  or  dark  Pelion's  crest. 

At  times,  some  bold  one  in  his  maddened  flight 
Quick  rearing  turns  about,  then  with  dazed  sight 
Rejoins  his  brethren  with  a  single  bound; 

For  there  the  moon  in  brightest  full  has  made 
Extend  behind  them — nought  could  more  confound  — 
The  giant  horror  of  Herculean  shade. 


14 


THE  BIRTH  OF  APHRODITE 

THE  BIRTH  OF  APHRODITE 

U  NBOUNDED  Chaos  wrapped  the  worlds  of  old 
Where  ranged  all  measureless  both  Time  and  Space, 
Till  Gasa,  bounteous  to  her  Titan  race, 
Gave  them  her  fecund  breasts  of  wealth  untold. 

They  fell.   The  Stygian  waves  above  them  rolled, 
And  storm-swept  never  had  the  Spring's  fair  face 
Brightened  to  feel  the  blazing  sun's  embrace, 
Nor  Summer  seen  her  harvest's  fruited  gold. 

In  savage  state,  no  joys  within  their  breast, 
The  immortals  held  Olympus'  snowy  crest. 
But  from  the  heavens  the  virile  dew  fell  free ; 

The  Ocean  cleaved;  and  Aphrodite  nude 
Rose  radiant  from  the  foaming,  glowing  sea 
With  life's  own  blood  of  Uranus  endued. 


15 


JASON  AND  MEDEA 

JASON  AND  MEDEA 

±3ENEATH  the  forest-domes,  in  spell-bound  peace, 
Where  fears  were  cradled  in  a  time  long  fled, 
Round  them  a  marvelous  dawn  its  teardrops  shed 
On  blossomy  strangeness  rich  without  surcease. 

Where  magic  airs  their  perfumes'  bane  release 
Her  charms  by  incantation's  word  she  spread, 
Whereat  the  Hero,  by  her  armed  and  led, 
Shook  off  the  lightnings  from  the  illustrious  Fleece. 

'Neath  arching  bloom,  to  fill  the  wood  with  light, 
Winged  radiant  birds  like  sparkling  gems  in  flight, 
And  silvery  lakes  of  azure  skies  drank  deep. 

Love  smiled  upon  them;  but  the  Spouse  so  dire 
Brought  jealous  fury,  Asian  spells,  her  sire, 
And  even  the  Gods,  within  her  awful  sweep. 


16 


THE  THERMODON 

THE  THERMODON 

J.  OWARD  Themiscyra  which  in  dire  despair 
Has  shaken  all  day  with  clash  of  horsemen  dread, 
Dark,  doleful,  slow,  Thermodon  bears  the  dead, 
The  arms,  the  chariots,  no  more  to  dare. 

Philippis,  Phoebe,  Marpe,  Aella,  where? 
Hippolyte  and  Asteria  who  led 
The  royal  host  to  slaughter's  gory  bed? 
Their  pale,  disheveled  bodies  now  lie  there. 

Such  giant  lily  bloom  is  here  laid  low, 
High-heaped  the  warriors  all  the  shores  bestrow, 
Where  madly  neighs  at  times  some  struggling  horse ; 

And  the  Euxine  sees  at  dawn  far  up  the  flood 
Ensanguined,  from  its  mouth  unto  its  source, 
White  stallions  flying  red  with  virgins'  blood. 


17 


ARTEMIS  AND  THE  NYMPHS 


ARTEMIS  AND  THE  NYMPHS 


ARTEMIS 


these  wood-odors  every  place  rise  o'er, 
Thy  nostrils  wide  dilate,  thou  huntress  bright, 
And  in  thy  virginal  and  virile  might, 
Thy  locks  thrown  back,  thou  settest  out  once  more. 

And  now  with  leopards'  hoarse,  incessant  roar 
Thou  mak'st  Ortygia's  isle  resound  till  night, 
As  through  the  orgies'  reek  thou  leapest  light, 
Where  mangled  hounds  imbrue  the  grass  with  gore. 

But  most  thou  joyest,  Goddess,  when  the  brier 
Bites  thee,  and  tooth  or  claw  tears  with  fell  ire 
Thy  glorious  arms  whose  shaft  revenge  has  ta'en; 

For  thy  heart  would  the  cruel  sweetness  dare 

Of  mingling  an  immortal  purple  there 

With  black  and  hideous  blood  of  monsters  slain. 


21 


ARTEMIS  AND  THE  NYMPHS 

THE  CHASE 

A  HE  chariot  to  the  horses'  flying  feet 
Heaven's  summit  mounts,  their  hot  breath  making  glow 
The  golden  plains  that  undulate  below; 
And  Earth  lies  basking  in  the  flaming  heat. 

In  vain  the  forest's  leaves  in  masses  meet: 
The  Sun,  where  hazy  peaks  their  glories  show, 
In  shade  where  silvery  fountains  laughing  flow, 
Steals,  darts  and  glints,  in  victory  complete. 

'Tis  the  hour  flamboyant  when,  through  brake  and  brier, 

Bounding  superb  with  her  Molossians  dire 

Mid  blood  and  death,  with  cries  of  clamor's  brood, 

Her  arrows  flying  from  the  tightened  string, 
With  streaming  locks,  the  breathless,  conquering, 
Distracted  Artemis  affrights  the  wood. 


22 


ARTEMIS  AND  THE  NYMPHS 

NYMPJL2EA 

L  N  westward  flight  the  car  of  heavenly  mould 
Speeding  toward  the  horizon's  verge,  in  vain 
The  powerless  God  pulls  back  with  fourfold  rein 
His  horses  plunging  in  the  glowing  gold. 

It  sinks.   The  sea's  hoarse  voice  in  moaning  told 
Fills  the  empurpling  heavens  with  sad  refrain, 
While  silently  mid  evening's  tranquil  train 
The  Crescent  in  her  silvery  garb  is  stoled. 

'Tis  now  the  time  when  Nymphs,  where  springs  gush  clear, 
Throw  the  slack  bow  the  empty  quiver  near. 
Except  a  stag's  far  belling,  all  is  still. 

The  dance  whirls  on  beneath  the  moon's  warm  ray, 
Where  Pan,  with  slackening  then  with  hurried  play, 
Laughs  as  the  reeds  at  his  own  breathing  thrill. 


ARTEMIS  AND  THE  NYMPHS 

PAN 

ACROSS  the  brake,  by  trails  that  lonely  lie 
Till  lost  where  verdurous  ways  wide  spreading  run, 
Divine  Nymph-hunter,  the  Goat-footed  one, 
Steals  through  the  forest  with  an  eager  eye. 

'Tis  sweet  to  hear  at  noon  the  freshening  sigh 
Of  cooling  springs  deep  hid  in  coverts  dun, 
When  that  bright  vanquisher  of  clouds,  the  Sun, 
His  golden  arrows  at  the  dark  lets  fly. 

A  Nymph  lone  wandering  stays  her  step.    She  hears 
Fall  drop  by  drop  the  morning's  lovely  tears 
Upon  the  moss.    Her  heart  drinks  ecstasies. 

But  quick  the  God  from  out  the  coppice  leaps, 
Enclasps  her,  then  with  mocking  laughter  flees  . . . 
And  once  again  the  wood  hushed  silence  keeps. 


24 


ARTEMIS  AND  THE  NYMPHS 

THE  BATH  OF  THE 
NYMPHS 

JT*  ROM  the  Euxine  sheltered  is  a  vale  where  grows 
Above  the  spring  a  leaning  laurel  tree, 
Wherefrom  a  pendent  Nymph  in  frolic  glee 
Touches  the  gelid  pool  with  timorous  toes. 

Her  sisters,  challenged  by  the  shells  where  flows 
The  gushing  wave  they  sport  with  joyously, 
Plunge  deep,  and  from  the  foam  a  hip  gleams  free, 
And  from  bright  locks,  a  bust  or  bosom's  rose. 

The  great,  dark  wood  is  filled  with  mirth  divine. 

Sudden,  two  eyes  within  the  shadow  shine. 

The  Satyr 'tis !  .  .  .  His  laugh  benumbs  their  play; 

And  forth  they  dart.    So,  at  a  crow's  ill  cry, 
Cayster's  snowy  swans  in  wild  array 
Above  the  river  all  distracted  fly. 


25 


THE  VASE 

THE  VASE 

jf\.  HAND  most  cunning  cut  this  ivory  piece; 
Here  Colchis'  forests  are,  while  here  combine 
Brave  Jason,  with  Medea  of  eye  malign, 
And  on  a  stela's  top  the  glittering  Fleece. 

The  Nile,  great  source,  flows  here  without  surcease, 
Near  where  Bacchantes,  nectar-mad,  entwine 
The  yoke  of  bulls  with  foliage-gloried  vine, 
While  some  essay  the  heavy  yokes'  release. 

Beneath,  are  cavaliers  that  hack  and  slay, 
The  dead  upon  their  bucklers  borne  away, 
The  mothers'  tears,  the  old  with  doleful  gaze ; 

For  handles  apt,  Chimaeras  who,  with  breast 
Robust  and  white  against  the  edges  pressed, 
Forever  drink  from  the  exhaustless  vase. 


27 


ARIADNE 

ARIADNE 

JL  O  brazen  cymbals'  clear  and  clanging  strain, 
The  Queen  in  nudeness  on  the  tiger's  back 
Views,  with  the  revels  that  illume  his  track, 
lacchus  coming  o'er  the  strand  amain. 

The  royal  monster  treads  the  sandy  plain, 
To  her  sweet  weight  submitting,  when,  alack, 
Touched  by  her  hand  wherefrom  the  rein  falls  slack, 
He  bites  his  bridle's  flowers  in  passion's  pain. 

Letting  the  amber  clusters  of  her  hair 

Roll  to  his  flank  amid  the  dusk  grapes  there, 

His  rumbling  roar  by  her  is  heeded  not. 

In  sooth,  her  mouth,  steeped  in  ambrosial  bliss, 
Its  cries  to  faithless  lover  now  forgot, 
Thirsts  for  the  Asian  Tamer's  nearing  kiss. 


28 


BACCHANAL 

BACCHANAL 

L-/OUD  clamors  fill  the  Ganges  with  affright: 
The  tigers  from  their  yokes  have  torn  away, 
And,  fiercely  mewing,  bound;  while  in  dismay 
Bacchantes  crush  the  vintage  in  their  flight. 

The  fruited  vines,  mangled  by  claw  and  bite, 
Spatter  the  striped  ones  with  their  reddening  spray 
Near  where  the  leopards,  leaping  to  the  fray, 
Roll  in  the  purple  mire  their  bellies  white. 

The  beasts  all  dazed,  whose  bodies  writhe  and  tear 
As  roar  on  roar  with  growl  long-drawn  is  rolled, 
Snuff  blood  still  richer  through  their  tawny  gold; 

But  the  mad  God,  shaking  his  thyrsus  there, 
Cheers  the  strange  sport,  and  adds  unto  the  bale 
The  howling  female  with  the  roaring  male. 


29 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  GOD 

THE  AWAKENING  OF 
A  GOD 

W ITH  bruised  throat,  their  tresses  flowing  free, 
Their  grieving  goaded  by  the  tears  that  rise, 
The  Byblus  women  with  lugubrious  cries 
Conduct  the  slow  and  mournful  obsequy. 

For  on  the  couch,  heaped  with  anemone, 
Where  death  has  closed  his  languishing,  large  eyes, 
Perfumed  with  spices  and  with  incense  lies 
The  one  by  Syria's  maids  loved  doatingly. 

The  singers  sound  the  dirge  till  morning  breaks. 
But  look !    Now  at  Astarte's  call  he  wakes  — 
Mysterious  Spouse  by  whom  the  myrrh's  bedewed. 

He's  risen,  the  youth  of  old!  and  all  the  heaven 
Blossoms  in  one  great  rose  with  blood  bright-hued 
Of  an  Adonis  to  celestials  given. 


See  note  p.  165. 


30 


THE  MAGICIAN 

THE  MAGICIAN 

EACH  WHERE,  even  at  the  altars  I  embrace, 
She  calls,  her  pleading  arms  my  vision  fill. 

0  sire  revered,  O  mother,  who  did  will 
To  bear  me,  am  not  I  of  hateful  race? 

The  Eumolpid  vengeful  one  in  Samothrace 
Shakes  not  his  red  robes  at  my  threshold,  still 

1  fly  faint-hearted,  leaden-footed,  till 

I  hear  the  sacred  dogs  howl  on  my  trace. 

In  every  spot  to  wretched  me  are  nigh 
The  black  enchantments,  hateful,  sinister, 
That  all  the  wrathful  Gods  have  bound  me  by; 

For  they  have  irresistibly  armed  her 
Intoxicating  mouth  and  deep  dark  eye, 
To  slay  me  surely  with  her  kiss  and  tear. 


See  note  p.  165. 


31 


THE  SPHINX 

THE  SPHINX 

.DENEATH  Cithaeron's  briery  flank  is  made 
A  rock-ribbed  den,  to  blaze  resplendent  there, 
With  golden  eyes  and  breast  divinely  fair, 
The  virgin  eagle-winged  whom  none  has  swayed. 

The  Man  stops  at  the  threshold  dazed. — What  shade 
Makes  gloomier  still  my  cavern's  gloomy  air? 
— Love. — Art  the  God? — The  Hero,  I. — Then  dare; 
But  thou  seek'st  death;  canst  now  be  unafraid? — 

I  can;  Bellerophon  slew  the  monster  dire. 

—  Come  not. — Thou  know'st  my  mouth  sets  thine  on  fire. 

—  Come,  then !  Between  mine  arms  thy  bones  I'll  maim, 

My  talons  tear  thy  flesh  .  .  .  — What's  agony, 

If  I  have  raped  thy  kiss  and  conquered  fame? 

— Thy  conquest's  vain,  thou  diest. — O  ecstasy!  .  .  . 


32 


MARSYAS 

MARSYAS 

1  HY  natal  pines  which  raptured  heard  thy  strains 
Burnt  not  thy  flesh,  O  thou  to  woes  decreed! 
Thy  bones  are  shattered,  and  thy  blood-drops  feed 
The  flood  the  Phrygian  Mount  pours  toward  the  plains. 

The  pride-blown  Citharist,  who  jealous  reigns, 
Has  with  his  plectrum  riven  thy  every  reed, 
That  taught  the  birds  and  tamed  the  lion's  breed; 
And  of  Celaena's  singer  nought  remains — 

Nought  but  a  bloody  shred  on  yonder  yew 
Where  the  poor  wretch  his  nameless  horror  knew. 
O  cruel  God!  O  cries  of  that  sweet  voice! 

Beneath  a  hand  too  wise  no  more  you'll  find 
Maeander's  stream  the  sighing  flute  rejoice, 
For  Marsyas'  skin  is  plaything  of  the  wind. 


See  note  p.  166. 


33 


PERSEUS  AND  ANDROMEDA 


PERSEUS  AND  ANDROMEDA 

ANDROMEDA  GIVEN  TO 
THE  MONSTER 

t/EPHEUS'  chaste  one,  alas!  disheveled,  lone, 
Chained  to  the  island  rock  of  sunless  gloom, 
Writhing  and  sobbing,  mourns  in  hopeless  doom 
Her  regal  form  that  terror  makes  its  own. 

The  monstrous  ocean,  by  the  tempest  blown, 
Spatters  her  icy  feet  with  biting  spume, 
While  everywhere  before  her  closed  eyes  loom 
The  gaping  jaws  in  myriad  horror  shown. 

Like  peal  of  thunder  from  a  cloud-free  sky 
A  sudden  neighing  rolls  and  echoes  nigh. 
Her  eyes  fly  open.    Fear  and  joy  are  one ; 

For  she  beholds,  in  whirling  flight  and  free, 
The  winged  horse,  upbearing  Zeus's  son, 
Stretch  his  grand  shade  of  azure  on  the  sea. 


37 


PERSEUS  AND  ANDROMEDA 

PERSEUS  AND  ANDROMEDA 

jTTL  T  last  alighting  mid  the  foam,  the  bold 
Medusa's  and  the  monster's  conqueror  Knight, 
Streaming  with  bloody  spume  of  horrid  sight, 
Bears  off  the  virgin  with  the  locks  of  gold. 

On  Chrysaor's  brother,  steed  of  heavenly  mould, 
That  neighs,  and  paws  the  sea  in  mad  despite, 
He  seats  the  dear  one,  shamed,  of  desperate  plight, 
Who  laughs  and  sobs  within  his  arms'  strong  fold. 

He  clasps  her  close.    Round  them  the  surges  beat. 
She  raises  feebly  to  the  croup  her  feet 
A  wandering  billow  kisses  as  they  fly; 

But  Pegasus,  inflamed  by  ocean's  stings, 
With  one  bound  rising  at  the  Hero's  cry, 
Sweeps  the  dazed  heavens  with  his  fiery  wings. 


38 


PERSEUS  AND  ANDROMEDA 

THE  RAVISHMENT  OF 
ANDROMEDA 

J.  HE  splendid  winged  horse,  in  noiseless  flight, 
From  out  his  nostrils  blowing  clouds  of  fume, 
Bears  them,  with  quivering  of  his  every  plume, 
Across  the  starry  ether  and  blue  night. 

Now  Af  ric  plunges  from  their  soaring  height, 
Then  Asia  .  .  .  desert  .  .  .  Libanus  in  tomb 
Of  mist  and  fog  .  .  .  and  here,  all  white  with  spume, 
The  mystic  sea  that  closed  sweet  Helle's  sight. 

Like  two  enormous  cloaks  the  wind  swells  wide 
The  pinions  which,  as  through  the  stars  they  glide, 
Keep  the  clasped  lovers  nested  from  the  cold; 

While,  as  their  throbbing  shadows  they  descry, 
From  Aries  to  Aquarius  they  behold 
Their  Constellations  dawning  in  the  sky. 


39 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

THE  GOATHERD 

JT  URSUE,  O  shepherd,  in  this  gorge  no  more 
That  bounding,  stupid  goat;  for  on  the  side 
Of  Maenalus,  where  summer  bids  us  bide, 
Night  rises  quickly,  so  thy  hope  give  o'er. 

Rest  here;  of  figs  and  wine  I've  ample  store. 
All  day  this  wild  retreat  have  we  espied. 
Speak  low,  Mnasylus,  Gods  roam  far  and  wide 
And  Hecate's  eyes  this  very  spot  explore. 

A  Satyr's  cave  is  yon  dark  gap  below — 
Familiar  demon  whom  these  summits  know. 
Be  still  and  he  may  come  from  out  his  nook. 

Dost  hear  the  pipe  that  sings  upon  his  lip? — 
'Tis  he !    His  horns  now  catch  the  rays ;  and  look, 
He  makes  my  charmed  goats  in  the  moonlight  trip. 


43 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

.  THE  SHEPHERDS 

Vx  YLLENE'S  deep  defiles  this  path  leads  to. 
Then  come.    Behold  his  cave  and  spring.    'Tis  there 
He  lies  on  thymy  bed,  and  fills  the  air 
With  strains  beneath  yon  pine  that  towers  in  view. 

To  this  trunk  moss-grown  tie  thy  pregnant  ewe ; — 
Dost  know,  ere  long  with  lambkin,  she  will  bear 
Some  cheese  and  milk  for  him?  And  nymphs  will  wear, 
Spun  from  her  wool  by  them,  a  mantle  new. 

Mayst  be  propitious,  Pan ! —  Goat-footed  one, 
Who  guard'st  the  flocks  that  on  Arcadia  run, 
Thee  I  invoke  .  .  .  Rehears!  The  tree  gives  sign! 

The  sun  sinks  down  the  radiant  West.  Depart. 
The  poor's  gift,  friend,  is  as  the  marble  shrine, 
If  offered  to  the  Gods  with  guileless  heart. 


44 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

VOTIVE  EPIGRAM 

J.  O  Ares  stern!  To  Eris  strife-possessed! 
Help  me,  I'm  old,  to  give  this  pillar  these: 
My  shield,  my  sword  well  hacked  with  braveries, 
My  broken  helmet  with  its  bloody  crest. 

Join  there  this  bow.  But,  say,  is't  meet  I  rest 
The  hemp  around  the  wood, — hard  medlar  tree's 
No  arm  but  mine  has  ever  bent  with  ease, — 
Or  stretch  the  cord  again  with  eager  zest? 

The  quiver  also  take.  Thine  eye  cons  o'er 
The  sheath  of  leather  for  the  archer's  store  — 
The  arrows  which  the  wind  of  battle  floats. 

'Tis  empty;  and  thou  think'st  my  shafts  are  gone? 

Then  hie  thee  to  the  field  of  Marathon, 

Where  thou  wilt  find  them  in  the  Persians'  throats. 


45 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

FUNERARY  EPIGRAM 

OTRANGER,  here  lies  the  blithesome  grasshopper 
Young  Helle  guarded  long  from  direful  fate, 
And  whose  wing,  vibrant  under  foot  serrate, 
In  bilberry,  pine  and  cytisus  did  whir. 

Alas!  she's  dead  —  the  natural  dulcimer, 
Of  furrow,  field  and  corn  the  muse  elate; 
Lest  thou  disturb  her  slumber's  peaceful  state, 
Pass  quickly  by  nor  heavily  press  on  her. 

"Pis  yonder.  Mid  a  tuft  of  thyme  we  see 

Her  grave's  white  stone  with  beauty  freshly  fair; — 

How  few  the  men  who  win  such  destiny! 

Her  tomb  oft  feels  a  child's  fond,  tearful  care, 

And  every  morn  Aurora  piously 

With  copious  dewdrops  makes  libation  there. 


46 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

THE  SHIPWRECKED  ONE 

W ITH  breeze  astern,  and  sky  serenely  clear, 

He  parts  from  Egypt  at  Arcturus'  rise, 

And  as  the  Pharos  fades  before  his  eyes 

His  brass-lined,  speedy  ship  fills  him  with  cheer. 

But  Alexandria's  mole  no  more  he'll  near: 

In  waste  of  sand  not  e'en  the  young  kid  tries 

The  tempest's  hand  has  scooped  his  grave,  where  sighs 

A  wind-entwisted  shrub  all  lone  and  drear. 

In  fold  the  deepest  of  the  shifting  dune, 

In  dawnless  night  where  shines  nor  star  nor  moon, 

As  last  the  navigator  quiet  owns. 

O  Earth,  O  Sea,  pity  his  anxious  Shade! 

And  on  the  Hellenic  shore  where  rest  his  bones 

Thy  tread  be  light,  thy  voice  be  silent  made. 


47 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

THE  PRAYER  OF  THE 
DEAD 

OTOP  .'—Traveller,  list  to  me.  If  thy  step  run 
To  Cypselus  and  to  the  Hebrus'  shore, 
Old  Hyllus  find  and  pray  him  to  deplore 
Without  surcease  his  unreturning  son. 

My  murdered  flesh  the  ravenous  wolves  have  won; 
The  rest  in  this  dark  thicket  lies ;  and  o'er 
The  Erebus-gloomed  banks  great  shadows  pour 
Indignant  tears.  My  death's  avenged  by  none. 

Depart  then;  and  shouldst  thou,  when  dies  the  day, 
See  at  the  grave's  or  hillock's  foot  delay 
A  black-veiled  woman  reft  of  every  bloom, 

Approach;  nor  night  nor  charms  need  give  thee  fears; 
For  'tis  my  mother,  who,  on  shadowy  tomb, 
Clasps  a  void  urn  and  fills  it  with  her  tears. 


48 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

THE  SLAVE 

NAKED  and  wretched,  with  the  vilest  cheer, 
Such  slave  am  I  —  my  body  bears  the  signs  — 
Born  free  upon  the  gulf  whose  beauty  shines 
Where  Hybla's  honeyed  slopes  their  summits  rear. 

Alas !  I  left  the  happy  isle  .  .  .  Ah!  shouldstthou  steer 
Thy  course  to  Syracuse's  bees  and  vines, 
Following  the  swans  as  winter's  cold  declines, 
Good  host,  acquaint  thee  with  my  loved  dear. 

Shall  I  ne'er  see  her  pure,  deep-violet  eye 
Reflecting,  brimmed  with  smiles,  her  natal  sky 
Beneath  her  dark-hued  brow's  victorious  bow? 

Have  pity! — Find  my  Clearista,  pray; 
Tell  her  I  live  once  more  her  face  to  know; 
Thou  canst  not  miss  her,  for  she's  sad  alway. 


49 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

THE  HUSBANDMAN 

i  HE  plow,  the  shining  shares,  the  goad  he  bore, 
The  yoke,  the  pitchfork  which  the  sheaves  bestows, 
The  harrow,  seed-bag,  and  the  scythe  that  mows 
Each  day  the  ears  which  fill  the  barn's  wide  floor ; 

These  long-used  tools  that  he  can  wield  no  more 
Old  Parmis  to  great  Rhea  now  foregoes, 
Through  whom  the  seed  in  sacred  joyance  grows. 
He's  fourscore  years;  for  him  all  tasks  are  o'er. 

For  near  a  century  in  the  burning  sun 

The  coulter  he  has  pushed,  yet  nought  has  won. 

Though  sad  his  life,  remorse  now  knows  him  not; 

But  he  is  worn  with  labor,  and  he  dreams 

That  with  the  dead  toil  still  may  be  his  lot, 

Where  Erebus  laves  the  fields  with  darksome  streams. 


50 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

TO  HERMES  CRIOPHORUS 

J.  HAT  the  companion  of  the  Naiads  may 
Be  pleased  the  ewe  anear  the  ram  to  lead, 
So  that  might  endless  multiply  the  seed 
Of  browsing  flocks  that  on  Galaesus  stray, 

He  should  be  gladdened  by  the  feast's  array 
Beneath  the  herdsman's  canopy  of  reed, 
For  sweet  to  Pan  his  sacrificial  meed 
On  marble  table  or  on  block  of  clay. 

Then  honor  Hermes,  for  the  God  so  wise 
Prefers  pure  hands  whereby  the  victim  dies 
To  splendor's  wealth  of  altar  or  of  fane. 

Friend,  raise  on  border  of  thy  mead  a  mound, 
And  with  the  blood  of  hairy  goat  there  stain 
The  turf  with  purple  and  imbrue  the  ground. 


51 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

THE  YOUTHFUL  DEAD 

V-/H,  do  thou  quickly  through  the  grasses  move 
Beneath  which  lie  my  ashes  in  despair, 
Nor  the  flowers  trample  of  my  grave  from  where 
I  list  to  ant  and  ivy  creep  above. 

Thou  stop'st?  Thou  heard'st  the  coo  of  mourning  dove. 

Oh,  on  my  tomb  her  sacrifice  forbear; 

If  thou  lov'st  me,  give  her  the  ambient  air ; 

Life  is  so  sweet,  still  let  her  taste  thereof. 

Thou  know'st?  With  myrtle  wreathed  for  me  a  bride, 
At  nuptial  shrine,  virgin  and  spouse,  I  died — 
From  all  I  loved  so  far,  and  yet  so  near. 

My  eyes  respond  not  to  the  happy  light, 
And  now  forevermore  I'm  wrapped  in  drear, 
Remorseless  Erebus  and  gloomy  Night. 


52 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

REGILLA 

A.NNIA  Regilla,  Aphrodite's  own 

And  Ganymede's,  in  death  reposes  here — 

Eneas'  daughter  to  Herodes  dear. 

So  beauteous,  happy,  young,  for  her  make  moan. 

The  Shade,  whose  lovely  body  here  lies  lone, 
In  the  Blest  Isles  with  him  who  rules  austere 
Counts  all  the  days,  the  months,  and  long,  long  year, 
Since  banished  far  from  all  that  she  had  known. 

Her  memory  haunts  her  spouse,  and  unconsoled, 

On  purple  bed  of  ivory  and  gold 

He  sleepless  tosses  and  lamenting  cries. 

He  yet  delays.  He  comes  not.  And  the  dear's 
Lorn  spirit,  filled  with  anxious  hope,  still  flies 
Round  the  black  sceptre  Rhadamanthus  rears. 


See  note  p.  167. 


53 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

THE  RUNNER 

ON   A   STATUE    BY    MYRON 

.  S  when  at  Delphi,  Thymus  close  behind, 
He  flew  through  stadium  to  applause's  roar, 
So  on  this  plinth  now  Ladas  runs  once  more, 
On  bronze  foot,  slim,  and  swifter  than  the  wind. 

With  arm  outstretched,  eyes  fixed,  trunk  front  inclined, 
The  beaded  drops  of  sweat  his  face  glide  o'er; 
Sure,  sculptor  scarce  had  cast  his  form  before 
It  leaped  all  living  from  the  mould  designed. 

He  throbs,  he  trembles,  hopes,  yet  fears  to  lose; 
His  side  heaves,  the  cleaved  air  his  lips  refuse, 
And  with  the  strain  his  muscles  jutting  rise. 

His  spirit's  ardor  nought  can  now  control, 
And  far  beyond  his  pedestal  he  flies 
In  the  arena  toward  the  palm  and  goal. 


54 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

THE  CHARIOTEER 

OTRANGER,  that  one  who  treads  the  golden  pole, 
His  steeds  of  black,  in  one  hand  fourfold  rein, 
The  other  holding  whip  of  ashen  grain, 
Better  than  Castor  can  his  car  control. 

His  father's  not  so  high  on  glory's  roll  .  .  . 
But  see,  he  starts,  the  limit  red  to  gain, 
And  strews  his  rivals  o'er  the  arena's  plain — 
This  Libyan  bold  dear  to  the  Emperor's  soul. 

Round  the  dazed  circus  toward  the  goal  and  palm 
Seven  times  the  victor,  dizzy  yet  still  calm, 
Has  whirled.  All  Hail,  son  of  Calchas  the  Blue! 

And  thou  mayst  see  (if  that  a  mortal  eye 

The  heaven-crowned  car  with  wings  of  fire  may  view) 

Once  more  to  Porphyry  glorious  Victory  fly. 

See  note  p.  169. 


55 


EPIGRAMS  AND   BUCOLICS 

ON  OTHRYS 

TO   PUVIS   DE    CHAVANNES 

±HE  air  blows  fresh.  The  sun  sinks  gorgeously. 
The  kine  fear  not  ox-fly's  nor  beetle's  pest. 
On  Othrys'  slopes  the  shadows  lengthen; — rest. 
Dear  guest,  sent  by  the  Gods,  rest  here  with  me. 

While  drinking  foamy  milk  thine  eye  shall  see, 
From  threshold  of  my  rural  cot,  the  crest 
Olympian,Tymphrestus'  snowy  breast, 
The  soaring  mountains,  fruitful  Thessaly, 

Euboea  and  the  Sea;  through  twilight's  red 
Callidromus  and  (Eta's  sacred  head, 
Where  Hercules  his  altar  raised  and  pyre; 

And  there  below,  Parnassus'  glowing  height, 
Where  Pegasus  now  folds  his  wings  of  fire, 
To  mount  at  dawning  in  immortal  flight. 


56 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

FOR  VIRGIL'S  SHIP 

IVlAY  your  kind  stars  guard  well  all  dangers  through, 
Bright  Dioscuri,  Helen's  kin  divine, 
The  Latin  poet  who  would  fain  see  shine 
The  golden  Cyclades  amid  the  blue. 

May  he  have  softest  airs  man  ever  knew; 
May  perfume-breathed  lapyx  now  incline 
With  swelling  sail  to  speed  him  o'er  the  brine, 
Until  the  stranger  shore  shall  glad  his  view. 

Through  all  the  islands  where  the  dolphins  glide 
The  Mantuan  singer  fortunately  guide ; 
Lend  him,  O  Cygnus'  sons,  fraternal  ray. 

One-half  my  soul  the  fragile  boat  contains, 
Which  o'er  the  sea  that  heard  Arion's  lay 
Bears  glorious  Virgil  to  the  Gods'  domains. 

See  note  p.  171. 


59 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

A  LITTLE  VILLA 

JL  ES,  that's  the  heritage  of  Callus  hoar 
Thou  dost  on  yon  cisalpine  hill  descry; 
A  pine  his  humble  house  is  sheltered  by, 
Whose  lowly  roof  the  thatch  scarce  covers  o'er. 

And  yet  for  guest  he  has  sufficing  store : 

His  oven  is  large,  his  vines  make  glad  the  eye, 

And  in  his  garden  lupines  multiply. 

"Pis  little? — Gallus  ne'er  has  longed  fdr  more. 

His  grove  yields  fagots  through  the  winter  hours, 

And  shade  in  summer  under  leafy  bowers, 

While  autumn  brings  some  passing  thrush  for  prize. 

'Tis  there,  contented  with  his  narrow  round, 
He  ends  his  days  upon  his  natal  ground. 
Go,  now  thou  knowest  why  Gallus  is  so  wise. 


60 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 


THE  FLUTE 


A-rf  O,  evening's  here.  Some  pigeons  skyward  fly. 
O  goatherd,  nought  so  soothes  love's  feverous  wound 
As  pipe  well  blown,  when  its  appeasing  sound 
Blends  with  the  sedgy  stream's  melodial  sigh. 

In  this  great  plane-tree's  shade,  where  stretched  we  lie, 
The  grass  is  soft.  That  goat,  now  rambling  round, 
Should  climb  yon  rock  where  tenderest  buds  abound, 
And  freely  browse  beyond  her  weanling's  cry. 

With  seven  unequal  stems  of  hemlock  made, 
Well  joined  with  wax,  my  flute,  or  sharply  played 
Or  grave,  weeps,  sings,  or  wails,  as  I  incline. 

Come.  Learn  Silenus'  art  that  knows  no  death, 
And  thy  love-plaints  will,  by  this  pipe  divine, 
Be  driven  to  flight  mid  its  harmonious  breath. 


61 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

TO  SEXTIUS 

V-/LEAR  skies;  the  sands  the  boat  has  glided  o'er; 
The  orchards  bloom;  the  frost  with  silvery  sheet 
No  longer  glints  from  mead  the  morn  to  greet, 
And  ox  and  neatherd  leave  their  stabled  store. 

All  things  revive; — yet  Death  and  his  sad  lore 
Still  press  us;  and  the  day  thou'lt  surely  meet, 
When  by  the  dice  the  revel's  royal  seat 
Will  be  allotted  to  thyself  no  more. 

Life's  short,  O  Sextius!  Upon  it  seize; 
Already  age  makes  havoc  of  our  knees. 
In  the  bleak  land  of  Shades  no  springtime  is. 

Then  come.  The  woods  are  green,  and  season  right 

To  immolate  to  Faun,  in  haunts  of  his, 

A  black-haired  goat  or  lamb  with  fleece  of  white. 


See  note  p.  172. 


62 


THE  GOD   OF  THE  GARDENS 


To  Paul  Arene 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

THE  GOD  OF  THE  GARDENS 

Olim  truncus  eram  ficu 

r* 

V/OMEnot!  Away!  Let  not  one  step  be  stayed! 
Insidious  pillager,  I  fancy  you 
Would  steal  the  grapes,  mad-apples,  olives,  too, 
Which  the  sun  ripens  in  the  orchard's  shade. 

I  watch.  A  shepherd  once  with  hedge-bill  blade 
Carved  me  from  fig-tree  trunk  ££gina  knew; 
Laugh,  but  consider  how  Priapus  grew, 
And  know  none  can  his  fierce  revenge  evade. 

Of  old,  to  seamen  dear,  on  galley's  beak 
With  ruddy  glow  I  stood,  and  joyed  to  speak 
To  laughter-sparkling  or  foam-crested  waves ; 

And  now  the  fruits  and  herbs  I  keep  watch  o'er, 
To  shield  this  garden  from  marauding  knaves  .  . 
The  smiling  Cyclades  I'll  ne'er  see  more. 


65 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 


THE  GOD  OF  THE  GARDENS 

*•*•     Hujus  nain  domini  colunt  me 
Deumque  salutant      CATULLUS 

1XESPECT,  O  Traveler,  if  my  wrath  you  fear, 
That  humble  roof  of  rush  and  flag  above 
A  grandsire's  and  his  children's  mutual  love ; 
He  owns  the  close  and  spring  that  bubbles  clear. 


'Twas  he  who  placed,  amid  the  area  here, 

My  emblem  in  the  lime-tree's  heart,  to  prove 

His  only  God  am  I — sole  guardian  of 

His  orchard  decked  with  flowers  I  hold  most  dear. 

Rustic  and  poor,  and  yet  devoted  they; 
For  on  my  gaine  they  piously  display 
Poppy,  green  barley-ears  and  violet; 

And  twice  a  year,  by  knife  of  planter  slain, 

The  rural  altar  with  the  blood  is  wet 

Of  youthful,  bearded  goat  of  potent  strain. 


66 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

THE  GOD  OF  THE  GARDENS 

III  Ecce  villicus 

Venit  .  .  . 

~-  ._.  CATULLUS 

Jrl  O,  you  sly  imps !  Of  dog,  of  traps,  beware ! 
As  guardian  here,  I  would  not,  for  my  sake, 
Have  one  pretending  garlic  bulb  to  take 
Plunder  my  fruit  groves  nor  my  grapevines  spare. 

Below,  the  planter  mows  his  field,  from  where 
He  spies  you;  if  he  comes  here,  by  my  stake! 
With  hard  wood  wielded  by  his  arm  he'll  make 
Your  loins  well  smoke,  whate'er  a  God  may  care. 

Quick,  take  the  left-hand  path,  and  with  it  wind 
Till  at  the  hedge's  end  a  beech  you  find; 
Then  heed  the  word  one  slips  into  your  ear : 

A  negligent  Priapus  lives  near  by; 

His  arbor  pillars  you  can  see  from  here, 

Where  blushing  grapes  in  shade-wrapped  greenery  lie. 


67 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

THE  GOD  OF  THE  GARDENS 

IV 

Mihi  Corolla  pieta  vere  ponitur 

E  CATULLUS 

NTER.  Fresh  coated  have  my  pillars  been, 

And  in  my  arbor,  from  the  sunshine's  glare, 
The  shade  is  softest.  Balm  perfumes  the  air, 
And  April  decks  the  ground  with  blossomy  sheen. 

By  turns  the  seasons  crown  me:  olives  green, 
Ripe  grapes,  great  golden  ears,  and  flower-cups  fair; 
While  goats  their  creamy  milk  still  kindly  spare, 
Which  curded  in  the  vat  each  morn  is  seen. 

The  master  honors  me  for  service  done; 

Nor  thrush  nor  thief  despoils  his  vines,  and  none 

Is  better  guarded  in  the  Roman  land. 

Sons  fair,  wife  virtuous,  the  man  at  home 
Each  eve  from  market  jingles  in  his  hand 
The  shining  deniers  he  has  brought  from  Rome. 


68 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 


THE  GOD  OF  THE  GARDENS 

V       Rigetque  dura  barba  juncta  crystallo 
Diversorum  poetarum  lusus 

AJ.OW  cold!  The  vines  with  frost  are  glittering; 
The  sun  I  watch  for,  knowing  the  time  exact 
When  dawn  red  tints  Soracte's  snows.  Distract 
Is  rural  God — man's  so  perverse  a  thing. 


For  twenty  winters,  lonely,  shivering, 
In  this  old  close  I've  lived.  My  beard's  compact, 
My  paint  scales  off,  my  shrunken  wood  is  cracked, 
And  now  the  worms  may  come  to  gnaw  and  sting. 

Why  of  Penates  am  I  not,  or  Lar 

Domestic  even,  retouched,  from  care  afar, 

With  fruits  and  honey  gorged,  or  wreathed,  as  they? 

In  the  fore-court  the  wax  ancestors  grace 
I  should  grow  old,  and  on  their  virile  day 
The  children  round  my  neck  their  bullae  place. 


See  note  p.  172. 


69 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

TEPIDARIUM 

\J'ER  their  soft  limbs  has  myrrh  its  fragrance  shed ; 
And  bathed  in  warmth  beneath  December's  skies 
They  dream,  while  the  bronze  lamp  with  flaming  eyes 
Throws  light  and  shadow  on  each  beauteous  head. 

On  byssus  cushions  of  empurpled  bed 
Some  amber,  rosy  figure  nerveless  tries 
To  stretch,  or  bend,  or  from  the  couch  to  rise, 
Where  linen's  folds  voluptuously  spread. 

Breathing  the  air  with  ardent  fumes  replete, 

An  Asian  woman,  nude,  amid  the  heat 

Twists  her  smooth  arms  with  languorous  control; 

And  the  pale  daughters  of  Ausonia  see 
With  gloating  eye  the  rich,  wild  harmony, 
As  o'er  her  bronzed  bust  her  jet  locks  roll. 

See  note  p.  174. 


70 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

TRANQUILLUS 

C.  Plinii  Secundi  Bpist.  Lib.  I,  Ep.  XXIV 

OUETONIUS'  pleasing  country  this;  and  he 
Near  Tibur  raised  his  humble  villa  where 
Some  vine-clad  wall  the  years  still  kindly  spare, 
And  arcade's  ruin  wreathed  in  greenery. 

Here,  far  from  Rome,  he  came  each  fall  to  see 
The  sky's  last  azure,  and  from  elm-trees'  care 
To  take  the  plenteous  grapes  empurpling  there. 
His  life  flowed  on  in  calm  tranquility. 

In  this  sweet  pastoral  peace  would  Claudius  bide, 
Caligula  and  Nero ;  here,  with  pride, 
Vile  Messalina  in  her  purple  strolled; 

And  here  with  pointed  stylus  he  has  told, 
Scratched  in  the  unpitying  wax,  of  him  who  tried 
In  Capri  all  that's  foul  when  he  was  old. 


See  note  p.  174. 


71 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

LUPERCUS 

M.  Val  Martialis.  Lib.  I,  Epigr.  CXVII1 

LuPERCUS  from  afar  cries: — Poet  dear, 
Thy  latest  Epigram  is  wondrous  fine; — 
Wilt  thou  not  lend  me  all  thy  works  divine? 
My  slave  will  call  for  them  when  morning's  here. 

— Ah,  no.  He  limps,  he  pants,  he's  old  and  sere; 
My  stairs  are  steep,  my  house  remote  from  thine ; 
Dost  thou  not  live  close  by  the  Palatine? 
Atrectus  in  the  Argiletum's  near — 

At  Forum's  corner,  where  he'll  sell  to  us 
The  dead  and  living:  Virgil,  Silius, 
Terence  and  Pliny,  Phaedrus  and  the  rest; 

There,  on  a  shelf,  and  one  not  very  high, 
Pounced,  robed  in  purple,  and  in  cedar  nest, 
Martial's  for  sale  at  five  denarii. 


See  note  p.  175. 


72 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 


THE  TREBIA 


AWN  tints  the  heights  on  this  ill  day  of  need. 
The  camp  has  roused.  The  waters  roaring  go 
Where  the  Numidian  light-horse  drink  below, 
And  everywhere  the  pealing  trumpets  plead. 

For  spite  of  Scipio,  of  the  augurs'  rede, 
Of  wind  and  rain,  the  Trebia's  swollen  flow, 
Sempronius  Consul,  proud  new  fame  to  know, 
Has  bade  his  lictors  with  the  axe  proceed. 

The  Insubres  their  burning  homes  behold, 

The  horizon  reddening  with  the  flames  uprolled, 

While  far  resounds  the  elephant's  loud  cry. 

Beneath  the  bridge,  leaning  against  an  arch, 
Deep-musing  Hannibal,  with  triumph  high, 
Lists  to  the  tramping  legions  as  they  march. 


73 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

AFTER 


v     NE  consul  killed;  one  to  Venusia  fled, 

Or  to  Liternum;  the  Aufidus  runs  o'er 

From  dead  and  arms;  lightning  has  struck  full  sore 

The  Capitol;  the  bronze  sweats,  and  the  heavens  look  dread 

Vainly  the  God's  feast  has  the  Pontiff  spread, 
And  twice  the  Sibyl's  Oracle  did  implore, 
The  grandsire,  widow,  orphan,  weep  yet  more, 
Till  Rome  in  consternation  bows  her  head. 

Each  evening  to  the  aqueducts  they  swarm: 
Plebs,  slaves,  the  women,  children,  the  deform  — 
All  that  the  prison  or  the  slum  can  spew  — 

To  see,  on  Sabine  Mount  of  blood-hued  dyes, 

Seated  on  elephant  Gaetulian,  rise 

The  one-eyed  Chieftain  to  their  anxious  view. 

See  note  p.  176. 


74 


ROME  AND  THE  BARBARIANS 

TO  A  TRIUMPHER 

ILLUSTRIOUS  Imperator,  thine  arch  crown 
With  old  chiefs  yoked,  barbarian  warriors'  throng, 
Bits  that  to  armor  and  to  boats  belong, 
With  beak  and  stern  of  ships  thine  arms  struck  down. 

Whoe'er  thou  art,  from  Ancus  sprung  or  clown, 
Thy  honors,  names  and  lineage,  short  or  long, 
In  bas-reliefs  and  frieze  engrave  them  strong, 
That  future  years  dim  not  thy  just  renown. 

Even  now  Time  lifts  his  fatal  arm.  Dost  hope 
To  give  thy  fame's  report  eternal  scope? 
Why,  let  an  ivy  climb,  thy  trophy  dies ; 

And  on  thy  blazoned  blocks,  dispersed  and  rent, 
As  choked  with  grass  their  glory's  ruin  lies, 
Some  Samnite  mower  will  his  scythe  indent. 


75 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA 

THE  CYDNUS 

JD  ENEATH  triumphal  blue,  in  flaming  ray, 
The  silver  trireme  tints  the  dark  flood  white, 
And  censers  breathe  rich  perfumes  that  unite 
With  rustling  silks  and  flutes'  mellifluous  play. 

Where,  at  the  prow,  the  spread-hawk  holds  his  way, 
Cleopatra  forward  leans  for  better  sight, 
And  seems,  as  stands  she  in  the  evening  light, 
Like  some  great  golden  bird  in  watch  for  prey. 

Now  Tarsus  sees  the  warrior  captive  there: 
The  dusky  Lagian  opes,  in  that  charmed  air, 
Her  amber  arms  with  roseate  purple  dyed; 

Nor  has  she  seen  anear,  as  fateful  sign, 
Shredding  the  roses  on  the  sombrous  tide, 
Those  twins,  Desire  and  Death,  of  life  divine. 


See  note  p.  176. 


79 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA 

EVENING  OF  BATTLE 

SEVERE  the  battle's  shock:  Centurions 
And  tribunes,  rallying  their  men,  once  more 
Breathe  from  the  air  that  trembles  with  their  roar 
The  scents  and  ardors  of  red  slaughter's  sons. 

With  gloomy  eyes,  computing  their  lost  ones, 
The  soldiers  see  Phraortes'  archer  corps 
Whirl  like  dead  leaves  afar,  and  streaming  o'er 
Their  tawny  cheeks  the  perspiration  runs. 

And  then  appeared,  with  arrows  bristling  round, 
Red  from  vermilion  stream  of  many  a  wound, 
'Neath  floating  purple  and  the  brass's  glare, 

To  sound  of  trumpet's  flourish,  grand  of  mien, 
Quelling  his  plunging  horse,  and  bathed  in  sheen 
Of  fiery  sky,  the  Imperator  there. 


80 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA 


\J  N  Egypt  sleeping  in  the  sultry  air 
The  twain  gazed  wistful  from  their  terrace  high, 
Where  far  they  could  the  Delta's  flood  descry 
Toward  Sais  or  Bubastis  onward  fare. 

Beneath  his  thick  cuirass  he,  born  to  dare,  — 
A  captive  now  to  croon  a  lullaby,  — 
Felt  on  his  conquering  heart  surrendered  lie 
Her  form  voluptuous  pressed  still  closelier  there. 

Turning  her  pale  face  mid  its  locks  of  brown 
To  him  whose  reason  perfumes  had  struck  down, 
She  raised  her  mouth  and  luring,  lustrous  eye  ; 

And  bent  o'er  her  the  chief  could  but  behold 
In  her  great  orbs,  starry  with  dots  of  gold, 
Only  unbounded  seas  where  galleys  fly. 


See  note  p.  176. 


81 


EPIGRAPHIC  SONNETS 

Bagn£res-de-Luchon,  Sept.  188  . 


EPIGRAPHIC  SONNETS 

ILIXONI  ISCITTO   DEO 

DEO  THF  VOW  HVNNV 

±  ^^       V  U  W 


KAB.FESTA 
V.  S.  L.   M.  V.   S.  L.   M. 

JL  HE  light-haired  Gaul,  he  of  Iberian  strain, 
The  brown  Garumnus  in  his  paint,  of  old, 
Upon  the  marble  cut  by  them  have  told 
This  water's  virtue  and  its  power  o'er  bane. 

The  Roman  pool  and  thermae  to  ordain 
The  Emperors  at  Venasque  then  made  bold, 
When  Fabia  Festa,  like  the  rest  controlled, 
Gave  to  the  Gods  the  mallow  and  vervain. 

As  when  Ilixon  and  Iscitt  were  young 

The  Springs  to-day  their  song  to  me  have  sung, 

Where  the  pure  air  the  sulphur  fumes  still  know. 

Hence  in  this  vow-made  verse  'tis  mine  to  raise, 

Like  Ulohox's  son  in  bygone  days, 

A  rough-hewn  altar  to  the  nymphs  below. 

See  note  p.  177. 


85 


EPIGRAPHIC  SONNETS 

THE  SPRING 

NYMPHIS  AVG.  SACRVM 

AN  brier  and  grass  the  altar  buried  sleeps, 
Where  falling  drop  by  drop  the  nameless  spring 
Fills  the  lone  vale  with  plaintive  murmuring: 
It  is  the  Nymph  that  o'er  Oblivion  weeps. 

This  useless  mirror  which  no  wavelet  sweeps, 
The  dove  now  seldom  kisses  with  her  wing, 
And  but  the  moon,  through  dark  skies  wandering, 
Her  pallid  face  alone  upon  it  keeps. 

At  times  a  passing  herdsman  here  delays; 

He  drinks;  then  pours  the  drops,  his  thirst  all  flown, 

From  out  his  hand  upon  the  road's  old  stone. 

In  this  the  ancestral  gesture  he  betrays, 
The  Roman  cippus  to  his  eye  unknown 
With  patera  near  the  libatory  vase. 


See  note  p.  177. 


86 


EPIGRAPHIC  SONNETS 

THE  BEECH-TREE  GOD 

FAGO    DEO 

J.  HE  house  of  the  Garumnus  glads  the  ground 
Beneath  a  gnarled,  mighty  beech  where  wells 
A  God's  pure  sap  by  which  the  white  bark  swells. 
The  mother  forest  makes  his  utmost  bound; 

For  by  the  seasons  blest  he  there  has  found 
Nuts,  wood  and  shade,  and  creatures  that  he  fells 
With  bow  and  spear,  or  with  sly  lures  compels, 
For  flesh  to  eat  or  fleece  to  wrap  him  round. 

The  years  have  crowned  his  toil  and  made  him  free; 

And  on  his  home-return  at  eve  the  Tree 

With  kindly  arms  seems  proffering  welcome's  good; 

And  when  death  comes  to  lower  his  lofty  brow, 
His  grandsons  will  cut  out  his  coffin's  wood 
From  the  sound  heart  of  its  supremest  bough. 

See  note  p.  177. 


87 


EPIGRAPHIC  SONNETS 


TO  THE  DIVINE  MOUNTAINS 

GEMINVS   SERWS 
ET    PRO    SVIS    CONSERVIS 

A3  LUE  glaciers,  peaks  of  marble,  granite,  slate, 
Moraines  whose  winds  send  blighting  ruin  through 
The  wheat  and  rye  from  Begle  to  Nethou; 
Lakes,  woods  of  shade  and  nest,  steep  crags  serrate ; 

Lone  caves,  dark  vales,  where  exiles  desolate, 
Sooner  than  crouch  before  the  tyrant  crew, 
Wolf,  chamois,  eagle,  bear,  as  comrades  knew; 
Abysses,  torrents,  cliffs,  blest  be  your  state! 

From  cruel  town  and  prison  when  he  flew, 
Geminus,  the  slave,  this  cippus  gave  unto 
The  Mountains,  sacred  guards  of  liberty; 

And  on  these  silence-pulsing  summits  clear, 
In  this  pure,  boundless  air's  immensity, 
A  freeman's  cry  still  falls  upon  mine  ear. 


See  note  p.  177. 


88 


EPIGRAPHIC  SONNETS 


MONTIBVS. 


THE  EXILED     GARRI DE0. 


i  N  this  wild  vale  where  Caesar  bids  thee  sigh, 
With  bended,  silvered  head  too  early  snowed, 
Slowly  each  eve  along  the  Ardiege  road 
Thou  comest  on  the  moss-grown  rock  to  lie. 

Thy  youth,  thy  villa,  greet  again  thine  eye, 
And  Flamen  red,  as  when  with  train  he  strode; 
And  so  to  ease  thy  longing's  heavy  load, 
Sad  Sabinula,  thou  regard'st  the  sky. 

Toward  seven-pointed  Gar  with  splendors  bright, 

The  tardy  eagles  hastening  to  their  height 

Bear  on  their  wings  the  dreams  that  fill  thy  mind; 

And  so,  without  desire  or  hope,  and  lost  to  home, 

Thou  raisest  altars  to  the  Mountains  kind, 

Whose  neighboring  Gods  now  solace  thee  for  Rome. 

See  note  p.  177. 


89 


THE  MIDDLE  AGE  AND  THE 
RENAISSANCE 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

A  CHURCH  WINDOW 

A  HIS  window  has  seen  dames  and  lords  of  might, 
Sparkling  with  gold,  with  azure,  flame  and  nacre, 
Bow  down  before  the  altar  of  their  Maker 
The  pride  of  crest  and  hood  to  sacred  right, 

Whene'er  to  horn's  or  clarion's  sound,  with  tight 
Held  sword  in  hand,  gerfalcon  or  the  saker, 
Toward  plain  or  wood,  Byzantium  or  Acre, 
They  started  for  crusade  or  herons'  flight. 

To-day,  the  seigniors  near  their  chatelaines, 
With  hound  low  crouching  at  their  long  poulaines, 
Upon  the  marble  floor  extended  lie; 

All  voiceless,  deaf  and  motionless  are  they, 
Whose  eyes  of  stone  look  on  the  window  nigh, 
Yet  cannot  see  its  rose  that  blooms  alway. 


93 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

EPIPHANY 

A  HEN,  Balthazar,  Melchior,  Gaspar  —  Magian  Kings, 
With  gorgeous  vases  where  enamels  glow, 
And  silver,  and  by  camels  followed,  go 
As  in  the  bodied,  old  imaginings. 

From  the  far  East  they  bear  their  offerings 
To  that  divine  One  born  to  suage  the  woe 
Of  man  and  beast  who  suffer  here  below. 
Their  robes  beflowered  a  page  upbearing  brings. 

Where  Joseph  waits  them  at  the  stable's  door, 
With  Chieftain's  crown  they  bend  the  Child  before, 
Who  laughs  and  eyes  them  with  admiring  mien. 

So,  when  Augustus  ruled  in  time  of  old, 
The  royal  Magians  from  afar  were  seen 
Presenting  precious  incense,  myrrh,  and  gold. 


94 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

THE  WOOD-WORKER  OF 
NAZARETH 

J.  O  make  a  dresser  the  good  master  here 
Has  ceaseless  toiled  since  dawn  with  weary  strain, 
Handling  by  turns  the  chisel  and  the  plane, 
The  grating  rasp  and  smoothing  polisher. 

With  pleasure  hence  he  sees,  toward  eve,  draw  near 
The  lengthening  shadow  of  the  great  platane, 
Where  blessed  Mary  and  her  mother  Saint  Anne, 
With  Jesus  nigh  them,  go  for  restful  cheer. 

The  parching  air  stirs  not  the  leaves  at  all; 
And  Joseph,  sore  fatigued,  his  gouge  lets  fall, 
As  with  his  apron  he  would  dry  his  face; 

While  the  pure  Prentice,  in  a  glory's  fold, 
Makes  alway,  in  the  shop's  obscurest  place, 
Fly  from  the  cutting  edge  his  chips  of  gold. 


95 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

A  MEDAL 

RlMINI'S  Lord,  Vicar  and  Podestate:— 
His  hawked  profile,  clearly  or  vaguely  seen 
In  tawny  glimmer  as  of  day's  last  sheen, 
Lives  in  this  medal  de'  Fastis  did  create. 

Of  all  the  tyrants  whom  a  people  hate, 

Count,  Duke  or  Marquis,  Prince  or  Princeling  e'en,- 

Galeas,  Hercules,  Can  or  Ezzelin, — 

None  can  the  haughty  Malatesta  mate. 

This  one,  the  best,  this  Sigismond  Pandolf , 
Laid  waste  Romagna,  Marches  and  the  Gulf, 
A  temple  built,  made  love,  and  sang  the  while ; 

And  e'en  their  loveliest  lack  refinement's  crown, 

For  on  the  bronze  that  sees  Isotta  smile 

The  Elephant  triumphal  tramps  the  primrose  down. 


See  note  p.  177. 


96 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

THE  RAPIER 

txALIXTUS  Pope  we  on  the  pommel  read. 
The  keys,  tiara,  boat  and  fish-net  bear 
Their  rich  reliefs  upon  the  sword's  guard  where 
Emblazoned  glows  the  ox  of  Borgian  breed; 

Within  the  fusil  laughs,  mid  coral  seed 
By  ivy  twined,  Faun  or  Priapus  fair, 
Till  raised  to  splendor  by  the  enamel  there, 
The  rapier's  more  for  wonder  than  for  need. 

Antonio  Perez  de  Las  Cellas  planned 

This  pastoral  staff  for  the  first  Borgia's  hand, 

As  though  his  famous  brood  he  had  foretold; 

And  better  far  than  Ariosto's  phrase, 

Or  Sannazar's,  this  steel,  with  hilt  of  gold, 

Pope  Alexander  and  the  Prince  portrays. 


97 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 


AFTER  PETRARCH 


JTS  you  came  out  of  church,  with  piety 
Your  noble  hands  bestowed  alms  freely  where 
Within  the  porch's  shade  you  shone  so  fair, 
The  poor  all  heaven's  great  riches  seemed  to  see. 

I  then  saluted  you  most  graciously  — 
Humbly,  as  suits  one  in  discretion's  care  ; 
When,  drawing  close  your  robe,  with  angry  air 
Your  face  you  shaded  as  you  turned  from  me. 

But  Love  that  will  the  most  rebellious  rule, 
Would  not  consent,  less  kind  than  beautiful, 
That  mercy  should  let  pity  pass  me  by; 

And  in  your  veiling  you  were  then  so  slow, 
The  umbrageous  lashes  of  your  beaming  eye 
Throbbed  like  dark  leafage  in  the  starlight's  glow. 


98 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

ON  THE  BOOK  OF  LOVES  OF 
PIERRE  DE  RONSARD 

J.N  Bourgueil  Gardens  more  than  one  of  yore 
Engraved  upon  the  bark  names  fondly  sweet, 
And  many  a  heart  'neath  Louvre's  gold  ceilings  beat, 
At  flash  of  smile,  with  pride  which  thrilled  to  soar. 

What  matters  it? — their  joy  or  grief  is  o'er; 
They  lie  in  stillness  where  four  oak  boards  meet 
Beneath  the  sighing  grass,  with  none  to  greet 
Their  voiceless  dust  that  feeds  oblivion's  shore. 

All  die.  Mary,  Helen,  Cassandra  bold, 
Your  lovely  forms  would  be  but  ashes  cold, 
—  Nor  rose  nor  lily  sees  the  morrow's  land  — 

Had  Ronsard  by  the  Seine  or  Loire  not  wove 
For  brows  of  yours,  with  an  immortal  hand, 
Fame's  laurel  leaf  with  myrtle  leaf  of  Love. 


99 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 


THE  BEAUTIFUL  VIOLE 

TO  HENRY  CROS  A  vous  trouppe  legere 

Qui  d  aile  passagere 
BY  JOACHIM  DU  BELLAY  Par  le  monde  volez  .  .  , 

U  PON  the  balcony,  where  her  longing  eyes 
The  road  to  far-off  Italy  can  trace, 
'Neath  a  pale  olive  branch  she  bows  her  face. 
The  violet  blooms  to-day,  to-morrow  dies. 

Her  viol  then  with  fragile  hand  she  tries, 
That  soothes  her  solitude  and  saddened  case, 
And  dreams  of  him  whose  heedless  footsteps  pace 
The  dust  wherein  Rome's  fallen  grandeur  lies. 

The  soul  of  her  he  called  his  Angevine  sweet 
Bids  each  vibrating  string  divinely  beat, 
Whene'er  her  troubled  heart  feels  love's  sharp  pain; 

And  on  the  winds  her  notes  far  distant  run, 
Caressing,  it  may  be,  the  faithless  one 
In  song  he  sang  for  winnower  of  grain. 

See  note  p.  179. 


100 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND 

AN  EPITAPH 

After  the  Verses  of  Henry  III 

t)  PASSER,  Hyacinthe  lies  hallowed  here, 
Who,  Lord  of  Maugiron  was,  now  cold  as  stone — 
God  rest  the  soul,  and  all  the  sins  condone, 
Of  him  who  fell  unshaken  with  a  fear. 

None,  not  e'en  Quelus  decked  with  pearl-gemmed  gear, 
In  plaited  ruff  or  plumed  cap  princelier  shone, 
And  so  thou  seest  this  mournful  marble  own 
A  branch  of  jacinth  cut  by  Myron's  peer. 

King  Henry  kissed  and  clipped  him  and  his  shroud 
Put  on ;  then  willed  that  to  Saint-Germain  proud 
Be  borne  his  pale,  cold  form  of  matchless  grace; 

And  that  such  grief  as  his  might  never  die, 
He  raised  this  emblem  in  this  sacred  place  — 
Sad,  sweet  memorial  of  Apollo's  sigh. 


101 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

GILDED  VELLUM 

i  HE  gold,  old  Master  Binder,  thou  didst  chase 
On  the  book's  back  and  in  the  edge's  grain, 
Despite  the  irons  pushed  with  free-hand  main, 
In  vivid,  brilliant  hue  no  more  we  trace. 

The  figures  which  so  deftly  interlace 
Grow  daily  on  the  fine,  white  skin  less  plain; 
And  scarce  we  see  the  ivy  thou  didst  train 
To  wind  in  beauty  o'er  the  cover's  space. 

But  this  translucent,  supple  ivory, 
Marguerite,  Marie — Diane,  it  e'en  may  be, 
With  loving  fingers  have  of  old  caressed; 

And  this  paled  vellum  Clovis  Eve  gilt  seems 
To  evoke,  I  know  not  by  what  charm  possessed, 
Their  perfume's  spirit  and  shadow  of  their  dreams. 


102 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

THE  DOGARESSA 

U  PON  the  marble  porticos  all  these 
Great  lords  converse  who  live  through  Titian's  lore, 
And  whose  rich  collars,  weighing  marc  or  more, 
Enhance  their  red  dalmatic  draperies. 

With  eyes  where  shine  patrician  dignities, 
The  old  lagoons  they  look  serenely  o'er, 
Beneath  clear  skies  of  Venice,  to  the  shore 
And  sparkling  azure  of  the  Adrian  seas. 

And  while  in  brilliant  throng  full  many  a  Knight 
Trails  gold  and  purple  by  the  stairs  of  white, 
Bathed  in  cerulean  sheen  all  joys  constrain; 

Indolent,  superb,  a  Dame,  retired  in  shade, 
Turning  half  round  in  billows  of  brocade, 
Smiles  at  the  negro  boy  who  bears  her  train. 


103 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

ON  THE  OLD  BRIDGE 

Antonio  di  Sandro  orefice 

JL  HE  Master  Goldsmith  has,  since  matins,  where 
Beneath  his  pencils  the  enamel  flowed, 
On  clasp  or  on  nielloed  pax  bestowed 
Latin  devices  in  resplendence  rare. 

Upon  the  Bridge,  where  bells  made  glad  the  air, 
Camail  and  frock  were  by  the  cape  elbowed; 
And  when  the  heaven  like  some  church  window  glowed, 
The  lovely  Florentines  were  haloed  there. 

And  quick  beguiled  by  dream  that  passion  knows, 

The  pensive  prentices  forgot  to  close 

On  ring's  chaton  the  lovers'  hands  in  plight; 

While  with  hard  point  as  any  stylet  keen, 
The  young  Cellini  chased,  all  else  unseen, 
On  pommel  of  a  dirk  the  Titans'  fight. 


104 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

THE  OLD  GOLDSMITH 

1  HAN  any  Master  the  maitrise  can  blaze, 
E'en  Ruyz,  Arphe,  Ximeniz,  Becerrill, 
All  gems  I've  deftlier  set,  and  with  more  skill 
Have  wrought  the  frieze  and  handle  of  the  vase. 

In  silver,  on  the  enamel's  irised  glaze, 
I've  carved  and  painted,  to  my  soul's  worst  ill, 
Shame,  not  the  Rood,  and  saint  upon  the  grill, 
But  Bacchus  drunk  or  Danae's  amaze. 

The  rapier's  iron  I've  damaskeened  full  well, 
And,  for  vain  boastings  of  these  works  of  hell, 
Adventured  the  eternal  part  of  me ; 

And  now,  as  fast  my  years  toward  evening  fly, 

O  would,  as  did  Fray  Juan  de  Segovie, 

While  chasing  gold  of  monstrance  I  might  die. 


105 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

THE  SWORD 

JL  RUST  me,  my  pious  child,  take  the  old  road: 
This  sword,  with  straight  cross-guards  in  twist  aright, 
Used  by  an  ardent  gentleman  of  might, 
Is  lighter  than  a  Romish  ritual's  load. 

Take  it.  The  Hercules  thy  touch  has  glowed, 
Its  gold  by  thy  grandsires'  use  kept  bright, 
Now  swells  beneath  its  surface  splendor-dight 
The  beauteous,  iron  muscles  of  a  God. 

Try  it.  The  supple  steel  a  bouquet  shows 
Of  sparks.  The  solid  blade  is  one  of  those 
To  send  a  prideful  shiver  through  the  breast; 

Bearing,  in  hollow  of  its  brilliant  gorge, 
Like  noble  Dame  a  gem,  the  stamp  impressed 
Of  Julian  del  Rey,  prince  of  the  forge. 


106 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 


TO  CLAUDIUS  POPELIN 


UN  fragile  glass,  within  the  lead's  embrace, 
Old  Masters  painted  lords  of  high  degree 
Turning  their  chaperons  full  piously, 
And  bowed  in  prayer,  as  though  of  bourgeois  race. 

The  breviary's  page  some  loved  to  grace 
With  saints  and  ornaments  a  joy  to  see, 
Or  made  to  glow,  by  pliant  touch  and  free, 
With  arabesques  the  ewer's  bellied  space. 

To-day,  Claudius,  their  rival  and  their  son, 
Reviving  in  himself  their  works  sublime, 
On  lasting  metal  has  his  triumphs  won  ; 

And  hence,  beneath  the  enamel  of  my  rhyme, 
I  would  keep  green  upon  his  brow  alway, 
For  future  ages,  the  heroic  Bay. 


107 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

ENAMEL 

JN  OW  take  thy  lamp;  the  oven  for  plaque  doth  glow; 

Model  paillon  where  irised  colors  run, 

And  fix  with  fire  in  the  pigment  dun 

The  sparkling  powder  which  thy  pencils  know. 

Wilt  thou  the  bay  or  myrtle  wreath  bestow 
On  thinker,  hero,  prince,  or  love's  dear  one? 
By  what  God  wilt,  on  sky  unlit  by  sun, 
The  glaucous  sea-horse  or  scaled  hydra  show? 

No.  Rather  let  a  sapphire  orb  reveal 

From  Ophir's  warrior  race  some  proud  profile  — 

Thalestris,  Bradamant,  Penthesilea. 

And  that  her  beauty  may  be  still  more  fell, 

Casque  her  blonde  locks  with  winged  beast,  and  be  a 

Gold  gorgon  on  her  bosom's  lovely  swell. 


108 


MIDDLE  AGE  AND  RENAISSANCE 

DREAMS  OF  ENAMEL 

J.  N  the  dark  chamber  roars  the  athanor, 
Whose  brick-cased  fire,  in  ardent,  glowing  state, 
Breathes  on  the  copper  till  it  there  will  mate 
With  gold's  own  splendor  from  enamel's  store. 

Beneath  my  brushes  are  born,  live,  run  and  soar 
Mythology's  rare  race:  Bacchus'  wild  fete, 
Chimaera,  Centaurs,  Sphinx,  and  Pan  the  great, 
With  Gorgon,  Pegasus  and  Chrysaor. 

Shall  I  now  paint  Achilles  weeping  near 

Penthesilea?  Orpheus'  banished  dear 

For  whom  the  infernal  gate  will  ne'er  relent? 

Hercules  confounding  the  Avernian  hound, 

Or  Virgin  at  the  cavern's  outer  bound 

With  writhing  body  which  the  Dragons  scent? 


109 


THE  CONQUERORS 


THE  CONQUERORS 

THE  CONQUERORS 

.A.S  falcons  from  their  native  eyrie  soar, 
So,  tired  of  woes  long  borne  with  haughty  air, 
Bold-hearted  men  from  Palos  and  Moguer 
Went  forth  with  daring  dreams  mad  to  the  core. 

They  longed  to  seize  the  fabled  metal  store 
Cipango's  mines  in  rich  perfection  bear, 
And  favoring  breezes  bade  their  brave  prows  dare 
The  dim,  mysterious  occidental  shore. 

At  eve,  as  Hope  unveiled  each  epic  view, 
The  tropic  sea's  bright  phosphorescent  blue 
Bewitched  their  slumbers  with  mirage  of  gold; 

Or  from  the  f oredeck  of  their  caravels 

On  alien  skies  they  wondered  to  behold 

Strange  stars  new  risen  from  ocean's  glowing  wells. 

See  note  p.  182. 


113 


THE  CONQUERORS 

YOUTH 

JUAN  Ponce  de  Leon,  by  the  Devil  led, 

With  years  weighed  down,  and  crammed  with  antique  lo 

Seeing  age  blanch  his  scanty  hair  still  more, 

The  far  seas  scoured  to  find  Health's  Fountainhead. 

By  vain  dream  haunted  his  Armada  sped 
Three  years  the  glaucous  wildness  to  explore, 
Till  through  the  fog  of  the  Bermudan  shore 
Loomed  Florida  whose  skies  enchantment  shed. 

Then  the  Conquistador  his  madness  blessed, 
And  with  enfeebled  hand  his  pennon  pressed 
In  that  bright  earth  which  opened  for  his  tomb. 

Old  man,  most  happy  thou:  thy  fortune  sooth 
Is  deathlike,  but  thy  dream  bears  beauty's  bloom, 
For  Fame  has  given  thee  immortal  Youth. 


114 


THE  CONQUERORS 

THE  TOMB  OF  THE 
CONQUEROR 

VvHERE  the  catalpa's  arches  cast  their  shade, 
Where  the  black  tulip  tree  white-petaled  blows, 
He  finds  not  in  the  fatal  earth  repose; 
Through  vanquished  Florida  he  passed  unstayed. 

For  such  as  he  no  paltry  tomb  be  made; 

For  shroud,  the  Western  India's  conqueror  shows 

The  Mississippi  which  above  him  flows. 

Nor  Redskins  nor  gray  bears  his  rest  invade. 

He  sleeps  where  virgin  waters  carved  his  couch; 
What  matters  monument,  the  taper's  vouch, 
The  psalm,  the  chapel  and  the  offering? 

Since  northen  winds,  amid  the  cypress'  sighs, 
Eternal  supplications  weep  and  sing 
O'er  the  Great  River  where  de  Soto  lies. 


115 


THE  CONQUERORS 

IN  THE  TIME  OF  CHARLES 
THE  FIFTH  EMPEROR 

W  E  place  him  with  the  famed  ones  passed  away, 
For  his  adventurous  keel  the  first  was  seen 
To  thread  the  island  Gardens  of  the  Queen, 
Where  breezes  made  of  perfumes  ever  play. 

Far  more  than  years,  the  surge  and  biting  spray, 
Infuriate  storms,  and  long,  long  calms  between, 
Love  of  the  mermaid  and  the  fright,  I  ween, 
Blanched  his  brown  hair  and  turned  his  beard  to  gray. 

Through  him  Castile  led  Triumph  o'er  the  seas, 
For  his  fleet  crowned  her  that  unrivaled  one 
Whose  boundless  empire  saw  no  setting  sun. 

Prince  of  all  pilots,  Bartolome  Ruiz, 
Who,  on  the  royal  arms,  still  lustrous  told, 
Bears  anchor  sable  with  its  chain  of  gold. 


116 


THE  CONQUERORS 

THE  ANCESTOR 

TO    CLAUDIUS    POPELIN 

vJTLORY  has  cut  its  noble  furrows  o'er 
This  Cavalier's  stern  face,  whose  dauntless  air 
Proclaims  he  yielded  not  when  the  fierce  glare 
Of  war  and  torrid  sun  beat  on  him  sore. 

In  every  place  the  sacred  Cross  he  bore — 
Sierras,  Terra  Firma,  Islands  fair ; 
The  Andes  scaled ;  then  led  his  pennon  where 
The  Gulf's  waves  whiten  the  Floridian  shore. 

Thy  pencils,  Claudius,  bid  his  kin  behold, 

In  his  bronze  mail  splendid  with  foliage  scrolled, 

In  life  again  their  moody,  proud  grandsire; 

His  glowering  eye  still  searching  as  of  old, 
In  the  enamel's  heaven  of  lustrous  fire, 
For  dazzling  glories  of  Castile  of  Gold. 

See  note  p.  183. 


117 


THE  CONQUERORS 

TO  A  FOUNDER 
OF  A  CITY 

VvEARY  with  seeking  Ophir's  shadowy  strand 
Thou  f oundedst,  on  this  gulf's  enchanting  shore 
Which  thou  the  royal  standard  raisedst  o'er 
A  modern  Carthage  for  the  fabled  land. 

Thou  wouldst  not  have  thy  name  by  men  unscanned, 
And  thoughtst  to  bind  it  fast  f orevermore 
To  this  thy  City's  mortar  mixed  with  gore; 
But  thy  hope,  Soldier,  rested  on  the  sand. 

For  Cartagena  sees,  all  choked  her  breath, 
From  her  dark  palaces,  thy  wall  meet  death 
In  ocean's  feverous,  unrelenting  stream; 

And  for  thy  crest  alone,  O  Conqueror  bold, 
As  proof  heraldic  of  thy  splendid  dream, 
A  silver  city  glows  'neath  palm  of  gold. 


118 


THE  CONQUERORS 

TO  THE  SAME 

A  HEIR  Inca,  Aztec,  Yaquis,  let  them  flaunt; 
Their  Andes,  forest,  river  or  their  plain —    ' 
These  men  of  whom  no  marks  or  proofs  remain 
Save  titled  show  of  Marquis  or  of  Count. 

But  thou  didst  found — boast  that  my  race  can  vaunt- 

A  modern  Carthage  in  the  Carib  main, 

And  Magdalena  even  to  Darien 

Where  flows  Atrato,  saw  the  Cross  high  mount. 

Upon  thine  isle,  where  waves  their  breakers  hurl, 
Despite  the  centuries'  storms  and  man's  mad  raids, 
Her  forts  and  convents  still  their  stoutness  hold; 

Hence  thy  last  sons,  with  trefoil,  ache  or  pearl, 
Crest  not  their  scutcheon,  but  with  palm  that  shades 
A  silver  city  with  its  plume  of  gold. 


119 


THE  CONQUERORS 

p 

TO  A  DEAD  CITY 

Cartagena  de  Indias 
1532-1585-1697 

deject,  the  Queen  whom  seas  obeyed! — 
Unhindered  now  the  shark  pursues  its  prey, 
And  where  the  giant  galleons  proudly  lay 
Nought  but  some  wandering  cloud  now  casts  a  shade. 

Since  Drake's  fell  heretics'  rapacious  raid 
Thy  lonely  walls  have  mouldered  in  decay, 
And,  like  some  collar  gloomed  by  pearls  of  gray, 
Show  gaping  holes  by  Pointis'  cannon  made. 

Between  the  burning  sky  and  foamy  sea, 

Amid  the  sun's  noontide  monotony, 

Thou  dream'st,  O  Warrior,  of  thy  conquering  men; 

And  in  the  languorous  evenings  warm  and  calm, 

Cradling  thy  glory  lost,  O  City,  then 

Thou  sleep'st  to  long-drawn  rustling  of  the  palm. 


See  note  p.  183. 


120 


THE  ORIENT  AND  THE  TROPICS 


ORIENT  AND  TROPICS 

VISION  OF  KHEM 

i 

IVllD-DAY.  The  air  burns;  beneath  the  blazing  sky 
The  languid  river  rolls  in  leaden  flight; 
The  blinding  zenith  darts  its  arrowy  light, 
And  on  all  Egypt  glares  Phra's  pitiless  eye. 

The  sphinxes  with  undrooping  eyelids  lie 
Lapped  in  the  scorching  sand,  with  tranquil  sight, 
Mysterious,  changeless,  fixed  upon  the  white 
Needles  of  stone  upreared  so  proudly  high. 

Nought  stains  or  specks  the  heaven  serene  and  clear 

Save  the  far  vultures  in  unending  sweep ; 

The  boundless  flame  lulls  man  and  beast  to  sleep ; 

The  parched  soil  crackles,  and  Anubis  here, 
Amid  these  joys  of  heat  immobile  one, 
With  brazen  throat  in  silence  bays  the  sun. 


123 


ORIENT  AND  TROPICS 

VISION  OF  KHEM 
ii 

i  HE  moon  on  Nilus  sheds  resplendent  light; 
And  see,  the  old  death-city  stirs  amain, 
Where  kings  their  hieratic  pose  maintain 
In  bandelette  and  funeral  coating  dight. 

Unnumbered  as  in  days  of  Ramses'  might 
The  hosts,  all  noiseless  forming  mystic  train, 
(A  multitude  granitic  dreams  enchain) 
With  stately,  ordered  ranks,  march  in  the  night. 

They  leave  the  hieroglyphic  walls'  array 
Behind  the  Bari,  which  the  priests  convey, 
Of  Ammon-Ra,  the  sun's  almighty  head; 

And  sphinxes,  and  the  rams  with  disk  of  red, 
Uprise  at  once  in  wild  amaze  as  they 
Break  with  a  start  from  their  eternal  bed. 


See  note  p.  184. 


124 


ORIENT  AND  TROPICS 

VISION  OF  KHEM 
in 

AND  the  crowd  grows,  increasing  more  and  more: 
The  dead  come  forth  from  hypogeum's  night, 
And  from  cartouche  the  sacred  hawks  in  flight 
Mid  the  great  host  in  freedom  proudly  soar. 

Beasts,  peoples,  kings,  they  go.  Fierce  foreheads  o'er, 

The  gold  uraeus  curls  with  sparkling  light, 

But  thick  bitumen  seals  their  thin  lips  tight. 

At  head,  the  Gods:  Hor,  Knoum,  Ptah,  Neith,  Hathor; 

Next,  those  whom  Ibis-headed  Thoth  controls, 

In  shenti  robed  and  crowned  with  pshent  all  decked 

With  lotus  blue.  The  pomp  triumphant  rolls 

Amid  the  dreadful  gloom  of  temples  wrecked, 
While  the  cold  pavements  wrapped  in  moonlit  air 
Show  giant  shadows  strangely  lengthened  there. 


125 


ORIENT  AND  TROPICS 

THE  PRISONER 

TO   CHROME 

MUEZZINS'  calls  have  ceased.  The  greenish  sky 
Is  fringed  with  gold  and  purple  in  the  West; 
The  crocodile  now  seeks  the  mud  for  rest, 
And  hushed  to  stillness  is  the  Flood's  last  cry. 

On  crossed  legs,  smoker-wise,  with  dreamy  eye, 
The  Chief  sits  mute,  by  haschisch  fumes  oppressed, 
While  on  the  gangia's  rowing  bench  with  zest 
Their  bending  oars  two  naked  negroes  ply. 

Jocund  and  jeering,  in  the  stern-sheets  where 
He  scrapes  harsh  guzla  to  a  savage  air, 
An  Arnaut  lolls  with  brutal  look  and  vile; 

For  fettered  to  the  boat  and  bleeding  thence, 
An  old  sheik  views  with  grave  and  stupid  sense 
The  minarets  that  tremble  in  the  Nile. 


127 


ORIENT  AND  TROPICS 

THE  SAMURAI 

This  was  a  man  with  two  swords 

OHE  wakes  the  biwa's  softest  melodies, 

As  through  the  latticed  bamboo  she  espies 

The  conquering  one  for  whom  her  love-dream  sighs 

Advance  amid  the  seashore's  fulgencies. 

'Tis  he,  with  swords'  and  fan's  rich  braveries. 
His  tasseled  girdle  steeped  in  scarlet  dyes 
Cuts  his  dark  mail,  and  on  his  shoulders  rise 
Hizen's  or  Togukawa's  blazonries. 

This  handsome  warrior  in  his  dress  of  plate, 

Of  brilliant  lacquers,  bronze  and  silk,  would  mate 

Some  black  crustacean,  gigantesque,  vermeil. 

He  sees  her; — and  he  smiles  behind  his  mask, 
While  his  more  rapid  pace  makes  brighter  still 
The  two  gold  horns  that  tremble  on  his  casque. 


See  note  p.  187. 


128 


ORIENT  AND  TROPICS 

THE  DAIMIO 

Morning  of  battle 

&TUNG  by  the  war-whip,  that  four  pompons  has, 
The  martial,  neighing  stallion  prances  high, 
And  with  the  clank  of  sabre  rattlings  fly 
From  metal-plated  skirt  and  bronze  cuirass. 

The  Chief,  in  lacquer  dressed,  crepon  and  brass, 
Frees  his  smooth  face  from  bearded  mask,  to  eye 
Nippon's  dawn  smiling  in  the  roseate  sky 
Upon  the  far  volcano's  snow-crowned  mass. 

But  in  the  gold-hued  east  the  star's  bright  ray, 
Lighting  in  glory  this  disastrous  day, 
He  sees  above  the  sea  resplendent  glow; 

To  shield  his  eyes  that  would  no  terror  shun, 
His  iron  fan  he  opens  with  a  blow, 
Where  burns  its  satin  with  a  crimson  sun. 


See  note  p.  187. 


129 


ORIENT  AND  TROPICS 

FLOWERS  OF  FIRE 

JlN  ages  past,  since  Chaos*  mighty  throes, 
This  crater's  pit  its  flaming  brood  unchained, 
Till  grandly  lone  its  fiery  plume  attained 
A  loftier  height  than  Chimborazo  knows. 

Yet  Silence  here  with  muffled  footstep  goes, 
The  bird  now  slakes  his  thirst  where  cinders  rained, 
While  earth's  congealed  blood,  lava,  has  constrained 
The  soil  to  deep,  inviolate  repose. 

Yet, —  act  supreme  of  fire  in  time  of  old, — 
Within  the  crater's  mouth  forever  cold, 
Making  the  comminuted  rocks  to  glow, 

Like  peal  of  thunder  in  the  silence  rolled, 
Standing  in  pollen  dust  of  powdered  gold, 
The  flame-born  cactus  opes  its  gorgeous  blow. 


130 


ORIENT  AND  TROPICS 


THE  CENTURY  FLOWER 


vjN  topmost  point  of  calcined  rocky  steeps, 
Where  the  volcanic  flux  dried  up  of  yore, 
The  seed  which  winds  from  Huallatiri  bore 
Sprout,  and  the  holding  plant  in  frailness  creeps. 

It  grows.  Its  roots  dip  down  to  darkness'  deeps, 
And  light  gives  nourishment  from  out  its  store, 
Till  a  century's  suns  have  ripened  more  and  more 
The  huge  bud  whose  bent  stalk  it  proudly  keeps. 

At  last,  in  air  that  burns  it  as  of  old, 
With  giant  pistil  raised,  it  bursts,  when  lo  ! 
The  stamen  darts  afar  the  pollen's  gold; 

And  the  grand  aloe,  with  its  scarlet  blow, 
That  vainly  dreamed  of  Hymen's  love-lit  way 
One  hundred  years,  now  blooms  but  for  a  day. 


See  note  p.  187. 


131 


ORIENT  AND  TROPICS 

THE  CORAL  REEF 

A  HE  sun  beneath  the  wave,  like  strange  dawn  shown, 
Illumes  the  unbounded  coral  forest  trees, 
Where  mix  in  tepid  basins  of  the  seas 
The  living  plants  with  creatures  flower-like  blown. 

And  those  that  salt's  or  iodine's  tints  have  known — 
Moss,  algae,  urchins  and  anemones  — 
Cover,  with  purple,  sumptuous  traceries, 
The  madrepore's  vermkulated  stone. 

A  monstrous  fish,  whose  iridescence  dims 
Enamel's  sheen,  across  the  branches  swims. 
In  lucid  shade  he  indolently  preys; 

And,  sudden,  from  his  fin  of  flaming  hue 

A  shiver,  through  the  immobile,  crystal-blue, 

Of  emerald,  gold  and  nacre  swiftly  plays. 


132 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 


THE  ANTIQUE  MEDAL 


still  ripes  the  colors  of  the  vine, 
That  warmed  with  its  antique  Erigone 
Theocritus'  glad  heart;  but  now  not  he, 
Of  those  his  verse  embalmed,  could  find  one  sign. 

Losing  the  pure  from  her  profile  divine, 
Arethusa,  who  by  turns  was  bond  and  free, 
Mixed  in  her  Grecian  blood  whatever  could  be 
Of  Saracen  rage  with  pride  of  Anjou's  line. 

Time  flies.  All  die.  Even  marble  feels  death's  dews. 
Agrigentum's  but  a  shade,  while  Syracuse 
Sleeps  under  shroud  of  her  indulgent  sky; 

And  but  hard  metal  fashioning  love  displayed 
In  silver  medals  keeps  in  bloom  the  high, 
Immortal  beauty  of  Sicilian  maid. 


135 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

THE  FUNERAL 

W  HEN  ancient  warriors  Hades  made  its  own, 
Their  sacred  image  Greece  was  wont  to  bear 
To  Phocis'  lustrous  fanes  as  Pytho  there, 
Rock-bound  and  lightning-girdled,  ruled  alone. 

Whereat  their  Shades,  when  night  in  glory  shone 
On  desert  gulfs  and  isles  all  brightly  fair, 
Heard,  from  the  headlands'  height  in  radiant  air, 
Famed  Salamis  above  their  tombs  intone. 

But  I,  when  old,  in  lengthening  grief  shall  die, 

And  then  nailed  down  in  narrow  coffin  lie, 

The  earth's  and  tapers'  cost,  with  priest's  fee,  paid; 

And  yet,  in  many  a  dream  my  soul  aspires 
To  sink  into  the  sun,  even  as  the  sires, 
Still  ygung  and  wept  by  hero  and  by  maid. 

See  note  p.  189. 


136 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

THE  VINTAGE 

X  HE  wearied  vintagers  their  tasks  resign 
With  voices  ringing  in  eve's  tremulous  air, 
And  as  the  women  toward  the  wine-press  fare, 
They  sing  mid  raillery  and  gesturing  sign. 

All  white  with  flying  swans  the  skies  now  shine, 
As  Naxos  saw,  with  fume  like  censers  bear, 
When  at  the  orgies  sat  the  Cretan  where 
The  Tamer  reveled  in  the  gladdening  wine. 

But  Dionysus,  with  his  thyrsus  bright, 

Who  beasts  and  Gods  made  subject  to  his  might, 

Girds  the  wreathed  yoke  on  panther  nevermore; 

Yet  Autumn,  daughter  of  the  Sun,  still  twines 

In  dark  and  golden  tresses,  as  of  yore, 

The  sanguine  leaves  and  branches  of  the  vines. 


137 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

SIESTA 

JN  O  sound  of  insect  or  marauding  bee; 
All  sleep  in  woods  that  droop  beneath  the  sun, 
Whose  light,  through  foliage  strained,  its  way  has  won 
To  emerald  moss  with  bosom  velvety. 

Piercing  the  dusky  dome  bright  Noon  roams  free, 
And  o'er  my  lashes  half  with  sleep  foredone 
Bids  myriad  glints  and  gleamings  furtive  run, 
That  lace  the  shade  with  vermeil  tracery. 

Toward  fiery  gauze  the  rays  inweave  now  hies 

The  fragile  swarm  of  gorgeous  butterflies, 

Mad  with  sap's  perfume  and  the  luminous  beams; 

And  tremulous  fingers  on  each  thread  I  set, 
As  in  gold  meshes  of  this  tenuous  net, 
Hunter  of  harmonies,  I  prison  my  dreams. 


138 


THE  SEA  OF  BRITTANY 


To  Emmanuel  Lansyer 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

A  PAINTER 

A!  E  knows  the  ancient,  pensive  race  of  dry 
And  flinty  Breton  soil — unvaried  plain 
Of  rose  and  gray,  where  yew  and  ivy  reign 
O'er  crumbling  manors  which  beneath  them  lie. 

From  wind-swept  slopes  of  writhing  beech  his  eye 
Has  joyed  to  see  mid  autumn's  boisterous  train 
The  red  sun  sink  beneath  the  foamy  main, 
His  lips  all  salt  with  spray  from  reefs  dashed  high. 

He  paints  the  ocean,  splendorous,  vast  and  sad, 
With  cloud  in  amethystine  beauty  clad, 
In  frothy  emerald  and  calm  sapphire ; 

He  fixes  fast  the  things  which  else  would  fly, 
And  on  his  narrow  canvas  makes  respire, 
In  the  sand's  mirror,  the  occidental  sky. 


141 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

BRITTANY 

JL  HAT  joyous  blood  thy  fretful  mood  may  quell, 
Thy  lungs  should  deeply  drink  the  Atlantic  air 
Perfumed  with  wrack  the  sea  delights  to  bear. 
Arvor  has  capes  the  surge  besprinkles  well, 

And  furze  and  heather  all  their  glories  tell. 
The  demons',  dwarfs'  and  clans'  own  land  so  fair, 
Friend,  on  the  mountain's  granite  guard  with  care- 
Immobile  man  near  thing  immutable. 

Come.  Everywhere  on  moors  about  Arez 
Mounts  toward  heaven — cypress  no  hand  can  slay- 
The  menhir's  column  raised  above  the  Brave ; 

And  Ocean,  that  beds  with  algae's  golden  store 

Voluptuous  Is  and  mighty  Occismor, 

Will  soothe  thy  sadness  with  his  cradling  wave. 

See  note  p.  189. 


142 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

A  FLOWERY  SEA 

vJ'ER  pied  plateau  the  wave-swept  harvest  flows, 
Rolls,  undulates  and  breaks,  with  wind  rocked  high, 
While  yon  dark  harrow,  profiled  on  the  sky, 
Seems  like  some  vessel  in  the  tempest's  throes. 

With  blue,  cerulean,  violet  or  rose, 
Or  fleecy  white  from  sheep  the  ebb  makes  fly, 
The  sea,  far  as  the  West's  empurpling  dye, 
Like  boundless  meadow  verdurously  glows. 

The  gulls,  that  watch  the  tide  with  eager  care, 
On  whirling  wing  with  screams  of  joy  fly  where 
The  ripened  grain  in  golden  billow  lies; 

While  from  the  land  a  breeze  of  sweets  possessed 
Disperses  o'er  the  ocean's  flowery  breast 
In  winged  rapture  swarms  of  butterflies. 

See  note  p.  190. 


143 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

SUNSET 

A  HE  blossomed  furze  —  gem  of  the  granite's  crest 
Gilds  all  the  height  the  sun's  last  glories  fill, 
And  far  below,  with  foam  refulgent  still, 
Unbounded  spreads  great  ocean's  heaving  breast. 

Silence  and  Night  are  at  my  feet.  The  nest 
Is  hushed;  the  smoking  thatch  folds  man  from  ill; 
And  but  the  Angelus,  with  melodious  thrill, 
Lifts  its  calm  voice  amid  the  sea's  unrest. 

Then,  as  from  bottom  of  abyss,  there  rise 
From  trails,  ravines  and  moors  the  distant  cries 
Of  tardy  herdsmen  who  their  kine  reclaim. 

In  deepening  shade  the  whole  horizon  lies, 
And  the  dying  sun  upon  the  rich,  sad  skies 
Shuts  the  gold  branches  of  his  fan  of  flame. 


144 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

STAR  OF  THE  SEA 

W  ITH  linen  coifs,  arms  crossed  on  breast,  and  dight 
In  thin  percale,  or  in  wool's  coarse  array, 
The  kneeling  women  on  the  quay  survey 
The  Isle  of  Batz  which  looms  all  foamy  white. 

Their  fathers,  husbands,  lovers,  sons,  unite 
With  Paimpol's,  Audierne's,  and  Cancale's,  away 
For  the  far  North  to  sail.  How  many  may, 
Of  these  bold  fishers,  see  no  more  home's  light! 

Above  the  noise  of  ocean  and  of  shore 
The  plaintive  chant  ascends  as  they  implore 
The  Holy  Star — sailor's  last  hope  in  ill; 

While  the  Angelus,  each  face  in  prayerful  wise, 

From  Roscoff 's  lowers  to  those  of  Sybiril, 

In  the  pale,  roseate  heavens,  floats,  throbs,  and  dies. 


145 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

THE  BATH 

1  HE  man  and  beast,  like  antique  monster,  free, 
Reinless  and  nude,  the  sea  have  entered  in 
Mid  the  gold  mist  of  pungent  pulverin — 
Athletic  group  on  sky's  refulgency. 

The  savage  horse,  and  tamer  rude  as  he, 

Breathe  the  brine's  fragrance  deep  their  lungs  within, 

As  mad  with  joy  they  feel  upon  their  skin 

The  Atlantic's  billows  beating  icily. 

The  surge  swells,  runs,  wall-like  is  piled, 

Then  breaks.  They  cry.  His  tail  the  stallion  plies 

Until  the  wave  in  jets  transplendent  flies; 

And  with  disheveled  locks  and  aspect  wild 
Their  smoking,  heaving  breasts  they  well  oppose 
Against  the  foam-crowned  breakers'  lashing  blows. 


146 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

CELESTIAL  BLAZON 

A '  VE  seen  upon  the  azure  of  the  West 
The  clouds  all  silvery,  purple,  coppery,  make 
Great  forms  before  the  dazzled  vision  take 
The  shape  of  blazon  splendently  impressed. 

An  heraldic  beast,  for  bearers  or  for  crest, 
Alerion,  leopard,  unicorn  or  snake— 
Huge  captive  ones  whose  chains  a  gust  might  break- 
Uprears  its  figure  and  outswells  its  breast. 

In  those  strange  combats  in  the  vast  of  space 

Of  evil  seraphs  with  the  archangel  race 

A  heavenly  Baron  must  have  won  this  shield — 

Michael  or  George,  perchance;  'tis  blazed,  I  ween, 
Like  theirs  who  made  Constantinople  yield: 
The  sun,  a  gold  bezant,  on  sea  of  green. 


147 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

ARMOR 

JT*  OR  guide  to  Raz  a  shepherd  at  Trogor, 
Haired  like  Evhage  of  old,  took  me  in  care ; 
And  then  we  trod,  breathing  its  spicy  air, 
The  Cymric  land  with  golden  broom  grown  o'er. 

The  West  grew  red,  and  still  we  walked  yet  more, 
Till  to  my  face  the  brine  its  breath  did  bear; 
When  cried  the  man,  stretching  his  long  arm  where 
The  landscape  lay  beyond:  Sell  euz  armor ! 

And  o'er  the  heather's  rose  the  ocean  was  seen, 
Which,  splendent,  monstrous,  waters  with  the  green 
Salt  of  its  waves  the  cape's  granitic  breast; 

And  then  my  heart,  before  the  horizon's  void, 
As  evening's  vasty  shade  drew  toward  the  West, 
The  rapture-thrill  of  space  and  winds  enjoyed. 


See  note  p.  190. 


148 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

A  RISING  SEA 

1  HE  sun  a  beacon  seems  with  fixed,  white  light. 
From  Raz  far  as  Penmarch  the  coast's  in  fume, 
And  only  wind-blown  gulls  with  ruffled  plume 
Through  the  mad  tempest  whirl  in  aimless  flight. 

With  ceaseless  roll  and  fierce,  impetuous  might 
The  glaucous  waves,  beneath  their  mane  of  spume 
Dispersing  clouds  of  mist  to  thunderous  boom, 
The  distant,  streaming  reefs  with  plumes  bedight. 

And  so  the  billows  of  my  thought  have  course — 
Spent  hopes  and  dreams,  regrets  for  wasted  force, 
With  nothing  left  but  memory  mocking  me. 

Ocean  has  spoken  in  fraternal  strain, 

For  that  same  clamor  which  impels  the  sea 

Mounts  to  the  Gods  from  man,  eternal,  vain. 


See  note  p.  190. 


149 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

A  SEA  BREEZE 

JL  HE  winter  has  deflowered  garden  and  heath; 
Nought  lives;  and  on  the  rock's  unchanging  gray, 
Where  the  Atlantic's  endless  billows  play, 
The  Jast  pistil  to  petal  clings  in  death. 

Yet,  what  rare  scents  this  sea  breeze  furnisheth 
I  know  not — grateful,  warm  effluvia  they 
That  bid  my  heart  to  mad  delight  give  way; 
Whence  comes  this  strangely  odoriferous  breath? 

Ah,  now  I  know! — 'tis  from  the  far-off  West, 
Where  the  Antilles  swoon  in  languorous  rest 
Beneath  the  torrid  occidental  heat; 

And  from  this  reef,  by  Cymric  billows  rolled, 
I've  breathed,  in  winds  my  natal  air  made  sweet, 
America's  dear  flowers  I  loved  of  old. 


150 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 


THE  SHELL 


AN  what  cold  seas,  under  what  winters'  reign, 
—  Who  knows,  or  can  know,  nacreous,  fragile  Shell  !- 
Hast  thou  mid  current,  wave  and  tidal  swell, 
In  §hallows  and  abysses  restless  lain? 

To-day,  beneath  the  sky,  far  from  the  main, 
Thou  hast  in  golden  sands  thy  bed  made  well  ; 
But  vain  thy  hope,  for  still  within  thy  cell 
Despairing  sounds  great  ocean's  mournful  strain. 

My  soul  a  prison  all  sonorous  lies, 

Where,  as  of  old,  complaining  tears  and  sighs 

With  sad  refrain  make  clamor  as  in  thee; 

So  from  the  heart-depths  She  alone  can  fill, 
Dull,  slow,  unfeeling,  yet  eternal  still, 
The  far,  tumultuous  murmur  moans  in  me. 


151 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

THE  BED 

VV  HETHER  with  serge  becurtained  or  brocade, 
Sad  as  a  tomb  or  joyous  as  a  nest, 
'Tis  there  we  mate,  are  born,  lie  peace-possessed, 
Child,  spouse,  old  man,  old  woman,  wife  or  maid. 

In  glad  or  sad,  with  holy  water  sprayed 
Under  black  crucifix  or  branch  that's  blest, 
All  there  begins,  all  there  meets  final  rest, 
From  life's  first  light  to  death's  eternal  shade. 

Rude,  humble  and  closed,  or  proud  with  canopy 
Whose  gorgeous  colors  blaze  triumphantly, 
Of  cypress's,  or  oak's,  or  maple's  mould, 

Blest  he  who  sleeps,  his  cares  all  laid  aside, 

In  that  paternal,  massive  bed  of  old, 

Where  all  his  own  were  born  and  all  have  died. 


152 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

THE  EAGLE'S  DEATH 

A.BOVE  the  sempiternal  snow  aspires 
The  vast-winged  eagle  still  to  loftier  air, 
That  nearer  to  the  sun,  in  blue  more  fair, 
He  may  refresh  his  sight's  undaunted  ires. 

He  rises.  Sparks  in  torrents  he  inspires. 
Still  up,  in  proud,  calm  flight,  he  glories  where 
The  tempest  draws  fell  lightnings  to  its  lair ; 
Whereat  his  wings  are  smit  by  their  fierce  fires. 

With  scream,  and  in  the  storm-cloud  whirling,  he, 
Sublimely  tasting  the  flame's  withering  kiss, 
Deep  plunges  to  the  fulgurant  abyss. 

Blest  he  who,  thrilled  by  Fame  or  Liberty, 

In  strength's  full  pride  and  dream's  enrapturing  bli 

Dies  such  heroic,  dazzling  death  as  this. 


153 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

MORE  BEYOND 

JVL  AN  has  o'ercome  the  lion's  burning  zone, 
As  that  of  venoms  and  of  reptiles'  bale, 
And  vexed  the  ocean  where  the  nautili  sail 
The  track  which  galleons  blazoned  as  their  own. 

But  farther  than  Spitzbergen's  breast  of  stone, 
Than  whirlpools  dire,  or  snows  that  never  fail, 
The  warm,  free  polar  waves  the  isles  assail 
Where  flag  of  mariner  has  never  flown. 

Depart!  The  insuperable  ice  I'll  dare, 

For  my  stout  spirit  would  no  longer  bear 

The  fame  that  wreathes  the  Conquerors  of  Gold. 

I  go,  to  mount  the  utmost  promontory, 

And  feel  the  sea,  that  silences  enfold, 

Caress  my  pride  with  whispered  hope  of  glory. 


154 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  DEAD 

TO    THE    POET    ARMAND    SILVESTRE 

VvHEN  over  us  the  cross  its  shadow  throws, 
Our  frames  enshrouded  in  the  mould  of  night, 
Thou  wilt  reflower  in  the  lily  white, 
And  from  my  flesh  be  born  the  ensanguined  rose. 

And  Death  divine  thy  verse  in  music  knows, 

With  silence  and  oblivion  to  his  flight, 

Will  bear  us,  cradled  in  serene  delight, 

Through  charmed  ways  that  strange  new  stars  disclose. 

And  mounting  to  the  Sun  our  spirits  twain, 
Absorbed  and  melted  in  his  depths,  will  gain 
The  tranquil  raptures  of  unceasing  fire ; 

While  friend  and  poet,  by  Fame's  pure  chrism  blest, 

Will  find  eternity  of  life  where  rest 

The  immortal  Shades  made  kindred  by  the  Lyre. 


155 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

TO  THE  TRAGEDIAN 
E.  ROSSI 

AFTER  A   RECITATION    FROM    DANTE 

JL'VE  seen  thee,  Rossi,  robed  in  black,  give  fair 
Ophelia's  tender  heart  thy  rending  blow, 
And,  tiger  mad  with  love  and  phrenzied  woe, 
Read  in  the  handkerchief  thy  soul's  despair. 

Macbeth  and  Lear  I've  seen,  and  wept  whene'er 
I  saw  thee,  who  lov'st  old  Italia  so, 
Kiss  Juliet  in  her  nuptial  tomb  laid  low; 
Yet  once  beyond  all  these  I  found  thee  dare. 

For  mine  the  horror  and  the  joy  sublime 
Of  then  first  listening  to  the  triple  rhyme 
Sound  in  thy  golden  voice  its  iron  swell; 

And,  lit  by  flames  of  the  infernal  shore, 

I  saw — and  shuddered  to  my  being's  core — 

The  living  Dante  chant  his  song  of  Hell. 


156 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

MICHELANGELO 

HAUNTED  he  was  by  torments  tragical, 
When  in  the  Sistine  where  no  fete  he  knew, 
Lonely,  his  Sibyls  and  his  Prophets  grew, 
And  his  Last  Judgment  on  the  sombrous  wall. 

He  heard  the  tear-drops  unremitting  fall, — 
Titan  whose  wish  to  highest  summits  flew, — 
Where  Country,  Glory,  Love,  their  failures  rue; 
And  deemed  that  dreams  are  false,  that  death  wins  all. 

And  so,  these  Giants,  bloodless,  weary  grown, 
These  Slaves  bound  ever  to  the  unyielding  stone, 
How  strangely  twisted  at  his  sovran  will; 

While  in  the  icy-hearted  marbles  where 

His  great  soul  seethes,  how  runs  with  vibrant  thrill 

The  passion  of  a  God  imprisoned  there. 


157 


NATURE  AND  DREAM 

ON  A  BROKEN  MARBLE 

A  WAS  pious,  O  moss,  to  close  those  eyes  of  thine; 
For  from  this  wasted  wood  has  fled  and  gone 
The  Virgin  who  the  milk  and  wine  poured  on 
The  earth  to  that  fair  name  which  marked  the  line. 

Viburnum,  hops  and  ivy  this  divine 

Ruin  enfold — unknowing  if  'twas  Faun, 

Pan,  Hermes  or  Silvanus; — and  upon 

Its  scarred,  maimed  front  their  verdurous  tendrils  twine. 

See !  The  slant  ray,  caressf ul  as  of  old, 
In  its  flat  face  has  set  two  orbs  of  gold; 
As  though  from  lip  the  vines  with  laughter  run ; 

And,  magic  spell,  the  breeze  around  it  blown, 
The  leaves,  the  wavering  shadows,  and  the  sun, 
Have  made  a  living  God  of  this  wrecked  stone. 


See  note  p.  191. 


158 


HEREDIA  DEAD 


HEREDIA  DEAD 
October  3, 1905 

Vainly  you'll  call  importunate  and  long 
On  him  to  add  fresh  jewels  to  his  store, 
For  muse-beloved  he  dwells  forevermore 
With  all  the  crowned  ones  of  his  lofty  song; 

And  in  the  midst  of  that  imperial  throng, 
Now  newly  splendored  by  his  sonnet-lore, 
Fame  gently  seats  him,  and  delights  to  score 
Her  beadroll  with  his  name  in  letters  strong: 

For  though  hefelinoijjassion's  noblest  ire_ 
Thai  bears  the  uttered  thought  on  wings  of  fire, 
Nor  made  his  numbers  all  the  vastness  sweep, 

Yet  he  was  Art's  and  drank  of  her  desire, 
Until  Imagination,  true  and  deep, 
Burst  into  beauty  on  his  flawless  lyre. 

See  note  p,  192. 


NOTES 


NOTES 

NEMEA  (page  9). 

The  slaying  of  the  Nemean  Lion  by  Hercules  is  told  by 
Theocritus  in  wonderfully  graphic  fashion  in  his  twenty- 
fifth  Idyl.  In  James  Henry  Hallard's  translation  of  the 
Idyls  into  English  will  be  found  a  rendering  of  this  Idyl 
in  the  hexameters  of  the  original.  Andrew  Lang  has  ren- 
dered the  Idyls  into  English  prose. 

CENTAURS  AND  LAPITH^  (page  13). 

The  combat  compacted  into  this  sonnet  is  related  in 
Book  XII  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  and  has  been  rendered 
into  English  blank  verse  by  Henry  King. 

THE  AWAKENING  OF  A  GOD  (page  30). 

Mysterious  Spouse  by  whom  the  myrrh's  bedewed. 

Adonis  "was  said  to  have  been  born  from  a  myrrh-tree, 
the  bark  of  which  bursting,  after  a  ten  months'  gesta- 
tion, allowed  the  lovely  infant  to  come  forth.  According 
to  some,  a  boar  rent  the  bark  with  his  tusk  and  so  opened 
a  passage  for  the  babe." — Frazer's  "Golden  Bough," 
p.  281. 

Of  the  annual  celebration  by  the  Syrians  and  other 
peoples  of  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Adonis,  see 
Frazer's  book  as  above,  pp.  276-296. 

THE  MAGICIAN  (page  31). 

The  late  Dr.  Jacob  Cooper,  of  Rutgers  College,  New 
Jersey,  pointed  out  to  me  (using  now  his  words)  the 
following: 

"In  an  unknown  Greek  author,  believed  to  be  Aelian, 
and  quoted  in  defining  a  word  by  Suidas  in  his  Greek 


165 


NOTES 

Lexicon  —  in  Greek — we  have  an  account  of  a  young 
woman  who  was  betrothed,  under  the  most  solemn  cir- 
cumstances, in  the  presence  and  by  the  authority  of  the 
Divinity  of  the  Cabiri.  (Betrothals  were  a  part  of  the 
duties  of  these  mysterious  Divinities,  as  is  shown  by  a 
well-known  case,  viz.,  of  Olympias  and  Philip,  the  parents 
of  Alexander  the  Great.)  This  damsel,  after  the  solemn 
betrothal,  was  deserted  by  her  affianced  husband.  She, 
then,  as  I  quote  from  Suidas's  Lexicon,  translating  the 
passage : 

'Beseeches  the  Cabiri  to  avenge  her,  and  follow  up 
(i.  e.,  to  pursue  to  destruction)  the  perjurer.  This  is  un- 
doubtedly the  love-lorn  damsel  who  is  the  "Magicienne" 
of  your  French  poet.' 

"The  Eumolpidai  were  a  priestly  family,  deriving  their 
origin  from  a  Pelasgian  Thracian  named  Eumolpus — the 
one  with  a  good  voice  or  melody.  They  were  clothed  with 
long,  purple  robes  which  they  shook  against  the  threshold 
of  those  they  cursed.  This  was  a  significant  action  among 
all  ancient  peoples  —  vide  Nehemiah,  Chap.  V,  v.  13  —  and 
is  so  among  orientals  to  this  day." 

MARSYAS  (page  33). 

Thy  natal  pines  that  raptured  heard  thy  strains 
Burnt  not  thy  flesh,   O   thou  to  woes  decreed! 
Thy  bones  are  shattered,  and  thy  blood-drops  feed 
The  Hood  the  Phrygian  Mount  pours  toward  the  plains. 

That  is,  not  only  did  Marsyas  not  have  his  funeral  pyre 
made  of  the  wood  furnished  by  the  pines  that  saw  his 
birth,  and  under  whose  branches  he  had  fluted,  but  his 
body  was  so  treated  as  to  frustrate  any  attempt  at  sepul- 


166 


NOTES 

I 

ture  of  it.  Nothing  seems  to  have  been  more  abhorrent  to 
the  Greek  mind  than  the  thought  of  the  non-burial,  without 
appropriate  rites,  of  the  human  body  or  of  its  ashes.  And 
this  thought  was  so  predominant  as  to  impel  the  Greeks 
to  inter  even  the  bodies  of  their  enemies  slain  in  battle. 
Jebbs  says,  in  the  Introduction  to  his  translation  of  the 
Antigone  of  Sophocles,  that  "The  Spartan  Lysander  omitted 
to  bury  the  Athenians  who  fell  at  ^Egospotami;  and  that 
omission  was  remembered  centuries  later,  as  an  indelible 
stigma  upon  his  name." 

And  so  it  was,  that  the  Athenian  Generals  who  had  so 
decisively  defeated  the  Spartans  in  the  great  naval  battle 
of  the  Arginusae,  were  treated  with  ignominy  by  their 
own  countrymen  because  of  their  not  having  taken  extraor- 
dinary pains  to  recover  the  bodies  of  their  slain  for  the 
purpose  of  interment.  The  notion  seems  to  have  been, 
that  in  the  absence  of  appropriate  burial,  the  shade  of  the 
dead  one  could  not  enter  Hades,  but  was  forced  to  wan- 
der disconsolately  about  the  earth.  But  it  was  not,  per- 
haps, so  much  for  the  ease  of  the  wandering  shade  that 
the  kinsfolk  were  moved  to  take  due  care  of  the  dead 
body;  for  unless  the  shade  were  safely  housed  in  Hades, 
it  was  in  a  position  in  its  lonely  wanderings  to  do  harm, 
and  would  be  inclined  to  do  such  harm,  to  those  who  had 
neglected  to  see  that  it  was  properly  cared  for. 

REGILLA  (page  53). 

In  the  Blest  Isles  with  him  who  rules  austere 

For  an  original  and  interesting  treatment  of  an  antique 

theme,  see  Edmund  Gosse's  beautiful  and  melodious  poem, 

"The     Island     of    the     Blest,"     in     his     volume     entitled 

"Firdausi   in   Exile   and   Other   Poems."     Homer,    in   the 


167 


NOTES 

fourth  book  of  The  Odyssey,  puts  Rhadamanthus  in  the 
Elysian  Fields.  The  passage  is  thus  rendered  by  William 
Morris: 

"But,  Zeus-cherished  Menelaus,  to  thee  it  shall  not  come 
In  the  horse-kind  land  of  Argos  to  meet  thy  death  and 

doom. 
But  unto  the  fields  Elysian  and  the  wide  world's  utmost 

end, 
Where    dwells    tawny    Rhadamanthus,    the    Deathless    thee 

shall  send, 

Wherein  are  the  softest  life-days  that  men  may  ever  gain; 
No  snow  and  no  ill  weather,  nor  any  drift  of  rain; 
But  Ocean  ever  wafteth  the  wind  of  the  shrilly  west, 
On  menfolk  ever  breathing,  to  give  them  might  and  rest; 
Because  thou  hast  wedded  Helen,  and  God's  son  art  said 

to  be." 

Pindar,  on  the  other  hand,  in  his  second  Olympian  Ode, 
puts  Rhadamanthus  in  the  Islands  of  the  Blest.  The  fol- 
lowing is  the  passage  as  rendered  in  prose  form  by 
Ernest  Myers: 

"Then  whosoever  have  been  of  good  courage  to  the 
abiding  steadfast  thrice  on  either  side  of  death  and  have 
refrained  their  souls  from  all  iniquity,  travel  the  road  of 
Zeus  unto  the  tower  of  Kronos:  there  round  the  islands 
of  the  blest  the  Ocean-breezes  blow,  and  golden  flowers 
are  glowing,  some  from  the  land  on  trees  of  splendour, 
and  some  the  water  feedeth,  with  wreaths  whereof  they 
entwine  their  hands:  so  ordereth  Rhadamanthus'  just  de- 
cree, whom  at  his  own  right  hand  hath  ever  the  father 
Kronos,  husband  of  Rhea,  throned  above  all  worlds." 

Hesiod,  in  his  Works  and  Days,  treats  of  the  Isles  of 


168 


NOTES 

the  Blest  in  the  following  beautiful  passage  which  is  here 
given  in  the  translation  of  the  Rev.  J.  Banks: 

"But  when  earth  had  covered  this  race  also,  again  Jove, 
son  of  Cronus,  wrought  yet  another,  a  fourth,  on  the 
many-nourishing  ground,  more  just  and  more  worthy,  a 
Godlike  race  of  hero-men,  who  are  called  by  the  former 
age  demi-gods  over  the  boundless  earth.  And  these, 
baneful  war,  as  well  as  the  dire  battle-din,  destroyed,  a 
part  fighting  before  seven-gated  Thebes,  in  the  Cadmean 
land,  for  the  flocks  of  CEdipus,  and  part  also  in  ships  be- 
yond the  vast  depths  of  the  sea,  when  it  had  led  them 
to  Troy  for  fair-haired  Helen's  sake.  There  indeed  the 
end  of  death  enshrouded  them;  but  to  them  Jove,  the  son 
of  Cronus,  their  sire,  having  given  life  and  settlements 
apart  from  men,  made  them  to  dwell  at  the  confines  of 
earth,  apart  from  the  immortals.  Among  these  Cronus 
rules.  And  they  indeed  dwell  with  careless  spirit  in  the 
Isles  of  the  Blest,  beside  deep-eddying  Ocean;  blest 
heroes,  for  whom  thrice  in  a  year  doth  the  fertile  soil 
bear  blooming  fruits  as  sweet  as  honey." 

As  to  whether  the  ancient  Greeks  conceived  the  Elysian 
Fields  and  the  Islands  Cor  Island)  of  the  Blest  as  being 
one  and  the  same  region  under  differing  names,  or  as 
separate  and  distinct  regions,  or  conceived  the  Elysian 
Fields  as  being  in  the  Blest  Isles,  and  so  a  part  of  them, 
is  perhaps  not  easy  to  make  out  with  any  degree  of 
certainty. 

THE  CHARIOTEER  (page  55). 

This  Libyan  bold  dear  to  the  Emperor's  soul. 
The    word   in   the   original    here   translated   Emperor   is 
Autocrator.     Under   the   Eastern   Empire,    as   Bury   points 


169 


NOTES 

out  in  his  "History  of  the  Later  Roman  Empire,"  Auto- 
crator  got  to  be  used  as  an  official  title  of  the  Emperor. 

The  second   tercet   of   this   sonnet  is   as   follows   in  the 
original: 

Et  tu  vas  voir,  si  1'ceil  d'un  mortel  puet  suffire 
A  cette  apotheose  ou  fuit  un  char  de  feu, 
La  Victoire  voler  pour  rejoindre  Porphyre. 
A  stranger,  who  is  present  at  the  games,  and  who 
is  evidently  seeking  information  as  to  the  names,  etc.,  of 
the  contestants,  runs  across  an  adherent  of  the  Blue  fac- 
tion of  the  circus,  who  is  willing  to  gratify  him,  and  who 
thereupon  points  out  to  him  a  great  charioteer  of  that 
faction  in  the  person  of  the  son  of  Calchas,  who  is  an 
illustrious  Libyan  and  a  favorite  of  the  Emperor.  While 
he  is  talking  the  race  begins,  but  he  still  makes  running 
comments,  and  at  its  close  enthusiastically  joins  in  the 
acclaim  to  the  victor.  Then  in  the  language  of  extrava- 
gance, carried  away  by  the  exaltation  of  the  moment,  and 
being  perhaps  something  of  a  poet,  he  exclaims  to  -the 
stranger  that  if  mortal  eye  can  suffice  for  the  blaze  of  so 
much  glory  he  may  see  the  goddess  Victory  in  her  car  of 
fire  again  crowning  Porphyry — the  son  of  Calchas  —  as 
she  doubtless  had  done  more  than  once  before.  The  scene 
might  very  well  be  laid  at  Constantinople  during  the  reign 
of  Justinian,  who  was  not  only  a  patron  of  the  Blues,  but 
was  a  frequent  attendant  on  the  games  of  the  circus. 
Indeed,  as  we  learn  from  Gibbon,  the  factions  of  the  cir- 
cus never  before  had  raged  as  they  did  during  his  reign. 


170 


NOTES 

FOR  VIRGIL'S  SHIP  (page  59). 

Thus  Horace   (excerpt  from  Ode  III,   Book  I): 

Sic  te  diva  potens  Cypri, 
Sic  fratres  Helens,  lucida  sidera, 

Ventorumque   regat   pater, 
Obstrictis  aliis  prjeter  lapyga, 

Navis,   quae  tibi  creditum 
Debes  Virgilium,  finibus  Atticis 

Reddas  incolumem,  precor, 
Et  serves  animae  dimidium  meae. 

This  is  beautifully   rendered  by  Lord  Lytton  as   follows: 
So  may  the  goddess  who  rules  over  Cyprus, 

So  may  the  brothers  of  Helen,  bright  stars, 
So  may  the  Father  of  Winds,  while  he  fetters 

All,  save  lapyx,  the  Breeze  of  the  West, 

Speed  thee,  O  Ship,  as  I  pray  thee  to  render 
Virgil,  a  debt  duly  lent  to  thy  charge, 

Whole  and  intact  on  the  Attican  borders, 
Faithfully  guarding  the  half  of  my  soul. 

Sargent  renders  the  passage  as  follows: 

So  may  thy  course  the  queen  of  Cyprus  guide, 

So  Helena's  twin  brethren  light  thy  sails, 
And  ^Eolus  restrain  all  winds  beside 

The  North-west  sweeping  in  propitious  gales; 
That  thou,   O  Ship,  I  earnestly  implore, 

Mayst  guard  the  precious  freightage  in  thy  care 
And  through  the  billows  to  the  Attic  shore, 

Virgil,  my  soul's  own  half,  in  safety  bear! 


171 


NOTES 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  with  these  the  inferior 
version  of  Gladstone: 

So  may  the  queen  of  Cyprian  heights, 
So  Helen's  brethren,  starry  lights, 
So  speed  thy  course  the  Lord  of  wind, 
And  all,   save  Zephyr,    fastly  bind: 

O  Ship,  thou  hast  a  debt  to  pay 
Our  Virgil:  hold  him  well  I  pray, 
Unharmed  to  Attic  bounds  consign, 
And  save  that  life,  the  half  of  mine! 

TO  SEXTIUS  (page  62). 

Clear  skies;  the  sands  the  boat  has  glided  o'er; 

Horace's  Ode  (Ode  IV  of  Book  I),  which  furnishes  the 
basis  for  this  sonnet,  reads  thus:  "Trahuntque  siccas 
machinae  carinas" — literally,  And  the  machines  [or  en- 
gines] draw  the  dry  keels  [or  boats].  That  is,  the  vessels, 
which,  during  the  winter,  have  been  hauled  upon  the 
shore  for  safety,  are,  now  that  spring  has  come,  drawn 
into  the  water. 

GOD  OF  THE  GARDENS— V  (page  69). 

In  the  fore-court  the  wax  ancestors  grace 
I  should  grow  old,  and  on  their  virile  day 
The  children  round  my  neck  their  bullce  place. 

The  God,  after  lamenting  his  sad  state  and  the  fact 
that  he  is  not  treated  with  the  same  consideration  as  the 
Household  Gods,  ventures  to  suggest,  that  if  he  had  his 


172 


NOTES 

deserts  he  would  be  placed  in  the  vestibule  near  the  wax 
ancestors,  where,  as  he  grew  old,  the  youths  would  devote 
their  bullae  to  him  on  their  assumption  at  puberty  of  the 
toga  virilis. 

The  vestibulum  of  the  Roman  house  was,  as  is  shown 
in  Becker's  Callus,  essentially  a  fore-court,  and  no  part 
of  the  house  proper.  It  was  ornamented  in  various  ways. 
It  is  related  by  Suetonius  that  in  the  vestibule  of  Nero's 
great  house  there  was  a  colossal  image  of  himself. 

The  Romans  preserved  the  features  of  their  ancestors 
in  masks  of  wax,  which  they  hung  on  the  walls  as  we  do 
family  portraits.  The  wax  was  sometimes  colored  and  the 
eyes  represented  by  glass.  We  read  that  under  the  mask, 
in  the  old  patrician  families,  were  inscriptions  indicating 
the  name,  the  dignities  and  the  great  deeds  of  the  de- 
ceased; and  these  portrait  masks  were  connected  in  such 
a  way  as  to  indicate  the  genealogy  of  the  family.  This  is 
illustrated  as  follows  in  the  opening  lines  of  Juvenal's 
eighth  Satire.  The  translation  is  that  of  Gifford: 

"Your  ancient  house!"  no  more. —  I  cannot  see 
The  wondrous  merits  of  a  pedigree: 
No,  Ponticus; — nor  of  a  proud  display 
Of  smoky  ancestors,  in  wax  or  clay; 
^Emilius,  mounted  on  his  car  sublime, 
Curius,  half  wasted  by  the  teeth  of  time, 
Corvinus,  dwindled  to  a  shapeless  bust, 
And  high-born  Galba,  crumbling  into  dust. 

What  boots  it,  on  the  lineal  tree  to  trace 
Through  many  a  branch,  the  founders  of  our  race, 
Time-honored  chiefs;  if,  in  their  sight,  we  give 
A  loose  to  vice,  and  like  low  villains  live? 


173 


NOTES 

Say,  what  avails  it,  that,  on  either  hand, 
The  stern  Numantii,  an  illustrious  band, 
Frown  from  the  walls,  if  their  degenerate  race 
Waste  the  long  night  at  dice,  before  their  face? 


Fond  man!  though  all  the  heroes  of  your  line 
Bedeck  your  halls,  and  round  your  galleries  shine 
In  proud  display;  yet  take  this  truth  from  me, 
Virtue  alone  is  true  nobility. 
Set  Cossus,  Drusus,  Paulus,  then,  in  view, 
The  bright  example  of  their  lives  pursue; 
Let  these  precede  the  statues  of  your  race, 
And  these,  when  Consul,  of  your  rods  take  place. 

TEPIDARIUM  (page  70). 

And  the  pale  daughters  of  Ausonia  see 

Ausonia   was   a    name    given    by   some    of   the   poets    to 
ancient  Italy.    See  the  seventh 


TRANQUILLUS  (page  71). 

And  here  with  pointed  stylus  he  has  told, 
Scratched  in  the  unpitying  wax,  of  him  who  tried 
In  Capri  all  that's  foul  when  he  was  old. 

It  is  scarcely  credible  that  Tiberius  could  have  led  the 
life  in  Capri  described  with  such  disgusting  detail  in  the 
pages  of  Suetonius. 


174 


NOTES 

LUPERCUS  (page  72). 

Martial's  Epigram  in  the  original  is  as  follows: 
IN  LUPERCUM 

Occurris  quoties,  Luperce,  nobis, 
Vis   mittam   puerum,   subinde   dicis, 
Cui  tradas  Epigrammaton  libellum, 
Lectum  quern  tibi  protinus  remittam? 
Non  est,  quod  puerum,   Luperce,  vexes 
Longum  est,   si  velit  ad  Pyrum  venire. 
Et  scalis  habito  tribus,  sed  altis. 
Quod  quaeris,  propius  petas  licebit: 
Argi  nempe  soles  subire  letum. 
Contra  Caesaris  est  forum  taberna, 
Scriptis  postibus   hinc  et  inde  totis, 
Omnes  ut  cito   perlegas   Poetas. 
Illinc  me  pete;   ne   roges  Atrectum: 
Hoc   nomen   dominus  gerit  taberns 
De   primo    dabit,    alterove   nido, 
Rasum  pumice,   purpuraque,   cultum, 
Denariis    tibi    quinque    Martialem. 
Tanti  non  es,  ais?  sapis,   Luperce. 

The    following   translation   may   be    ventured    on. 
TO  LUPERCUS 

When  meeting  me,  how  oft  have  you,  Lupercus, 
Asked,   may   I  not  my  servant  send  unto  thee, 
To  fetch  that  little  book  where  brightly  sparkle 
Thy  wondrous  Epigrams  the  very  latest, 
Which,  when  I've  read,  I  shall  at  once  return  thee?- 


175 


NOTES 

But  thus  the  boy  you  should  not  wish  to  harass; 
For  long,  in  truth,  he'll  find  the  road  to  Pyrum,* 
And  at  my  house  three  flights  of  steepy  stairway. 
Why  go  so  far  when  near  is  all  you  wish  for: 
Of  course  you  enter  oft  the  Argiletum.* 
Where,  facing  Caesar's  Forum,  is  a  bookshop, 
Whose  posts  are  so  becovered  o'er  with  titles, 
One  may  the  poets  quickly  well  examine. 
There  you   should  seek  me;   you  may  ask  Atrectus; 
His  name's  displayed  full  plainly  as  the  owner. 
From  his  first  shelf  or  mayhap  from  some  other, 
With  pumice  smoothed  and  richly  clothed  in  purple, 
For  five  denarii  he'll  give  you  Martial. 
Too  much,  you  say?    All  wise  are  you,  Lupercus. 

AFTER  CANN^:  (page  74). 

The  one-eyed  Chieftain  to  their  anxious  -view. 
Intermediate  the  battle  of  the  Trebia  and  that  of  Cannae 
Hannibal  lost  an  eye  as  the   result  of  an  ophthalmia. 

THE  CYDNUS  (page  79). 

The  dusky  Lagian  opes,  in  that  charmed  air, 
Lagus   (a  Macedonian)   was  the  founder  of  the  dynasty 
to   which    Cleopatra   belonged.     Hence   "la   brune   Lagide" 
of  the  original.    Ptolemy,  the  son  of  Lagus,  was  the  first 
of  the  so-called  Macedonian  Kings  of  Egypt. 

ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  (page  81). 

Only  unbounded  seas  where  galleys  fly. 
Alluding,  of  course,  to  the  flight  of  Cleopatra's  galleys 
at  the  battle  of  Actium. 

*Pyrum    was    the    region    of    Rome    in    which    Martial 
lived,  and  Argiletum  was  a  region  famous  for  bookshops. 


176 


NOTES 

EPIGRAPHIC  SONNETS 
(pages  85,  86,  87,  88  and  89). 

The  Roman  cippus  was  used,  among  other  things,  for 
memorial  inscriptions,  as  is  illustrated  in  the  headings  to 
the  sonnets  on  pages  85,  86,  87,  88  and  89.  The  "V.  S. 
L.  M."  in  three  of  these  headings  are  the  initial  letters  of 
the  words,  votum  solvit  libens  merito  —  meaning  that  the 
vow  [to  erect  the  cippus]  is  gladly  and  deservedly  ful- 
filled. These  cippi  were  from  the  plainest  to  the  most 
ornate  in  character. 

A  MEDAL  (page  96). 

Of  all  the  tyrants  whom  a  people  hate, 

Count,  Duke  or  Marquis,  Prince  or  Princeling  e'en, — 

Galeas,  Hercules,  Can  or  Ezzelin, — 

None   can   the   haughty  Malatesta  mate. 

Galeazzo  Maria  Sforza,  Duke  of  Milan  (the  Galeas  of 
the  text),  was  born  in  1444  and  died  by  assassination 
in  1476. 

There  were  three  sovereigns  of  the  House  of  Este  bear- 
ing the  name  of  Hercules,  one  of  whom  was  Duke  of 
Modena  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  two  others  were: 
Hercules  I,  Duke  of  Ferrara  and  Modena,  who  began  his 
reign  in  1471  and  died  in  1505;  and  Hercules  II,  Duke 
of  Ferrara  and  Modena,  who  was  born  in  1508,  and  died 
in  1559,  and  whose  mother  was  the  celebrated  Lucrezia 
Borgia. 

There  were  three  Cans  who  were  sovereigns  of  Verona, 
their  names  being  Can-Grande  della  Scala.  The  one 


177 


NOTES 

mentioned  in  the  text  is  doubtless  the  second  one,  of 
whom  we  read  in  Larousse  that  he  was  assassinated  at 
Verona  in  1359  by  his  brother  Can-Signore,  leaving  be- 
hind him  the  memory  of  a  rapacious  and  cruel  tyrant. 
The  most  noted  and  best  of  them  was  the  first  one,  who 
is  familiarly  known  to  us  as  Can-Grande,  the  friend  of 
Dante.  He  sheltered  the  poet  in  his  palace  during  a  part 
of  the  time  of  his  exile,  and  Dante  gave  him,  on  its 
completion,  a  copy  of  the  Paradiso.  In  fact,  it  is  thought 
there  are  several  commendatory  references  to  him  in  the 
Divine  Comedy.  It  seems  that  an  estrangement  subse- 
quently grew  up  between  them.  This  Can-Grande  was  the 
Imperial  Vicar,  and  was  not  only  a  great  military  leader, 
but  a  patron  as  well  of  letters  and  of  the  arts.  He  was 
born  in  1291  and  died  in  1329,  after  a  rule  in  Verona 
of  nearly  twenty  years. 

Ezzelino  III  is  the  Ezzelin  mentioned  in  the  text.  He 
was  known  as  the  tyrant  of  Padua.  He  was  born  in  1194 
and  died  in  1259.  Plumptre,  in  one  of  his  foot-notes  to 
his  translation  of  the  twelfth  Canto  of  Dante's  Inferno, 
speaks  of  this  Ezzelin  as  follows:  "Of  all  the  tyrants  of 
that  evil  time,  Ezzelin,  known  in  popular  legend  as  the 
Child  of  the  Devil,  was  the  most  steeped  in  cruelties. 
Sismondi  shrinks  from  telling  the  tale  of  his  rapacity,  his 
massacres,  his  fiendish  tortures  of  his  enemies.  And  his 
death  was  the  fit  close  of  such  a  life.  Wounded  and  taken 
captive  on  his  way  to  attack  Milan,  he  was  imprisoned  at 
Soriano,  refused  all  food  and  medical  aid,  sat  for  eleven 
days  in  gloomy  silence,  tore  the  bandages  from  his  wound, 
and  died."  Dante  puts  him  in  the  Seventh  Circle  of  Hell 
with  some  other  tyrants. 


178 


NOTES 

On  this  Ezzelin,  Eugene  Lee-Hamilton  has  the  follow- 
ing remarkable  sonnet,  to  be  found  in  his  book  of 
"Imaginary  Sonnets": 

EZZELIN   TO  LUCIFER 

(1250) 

The   wolves  were   yelping   round   the  castle   tower; 
The   witches  croaked   a   baleful   bridal   hymn; 
The  marsh  lights  danced  all  round  the  black  moat's  rim, 
Where  swam  the  moonlit  snakes  at  spellful  hour; 

Like  a  hot  whirlwind  to  my  mother's  bower, 

Then,    Fiend,   thou    earnest  —  scorching  breast   and  limb 
With  sulph'rous  kisses,  till  the  stars  grew  dim 

And  hungry  Day  did  the  thin  moon  devour. 

O  Lucifer,  O  Father,  have  I  done 

Enough  in  thy  dread  service?    Art  thou  pleased, 
O  pain-inflictor,  with  thy  Paduan  son? 

Have  I  not  turned  my  cities  into  hells? 

Foreburnt  thy  damned,  innumerably  teased 
Men's  feet  with  fire,  and  filled  the  world  with  yells? 

The  Malatestas,  Lords  of  Rimini  and  of  great  part  of 
the  Romagna,  began  their  career  as  sovereigns  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  thirteenth  century  and  ended  it  in  the 
early  part  of  the  sixteenth. 

THE  BEAUTIFUL  VIOLE  (page  100). 

The  original,  from  which  the  poet  has  taken  for  motto 
the  first  three  lines,  is  as  follows: 


179 


NOTES 

D'UN  VANNEUR  DE  BLE  AUX  VENTS 

A  vous  trouppe  legere 
Qui  d'aile  passagere 
Par  le  monde  volez, 
Et  d'un  sifflant  murmure 
L'ombrageuse  verdure 
Doulcement  esbranlez, 

J'offre  ces  violettes 

Ces  Us  &  ces   fleurettes, 
Et  ces  roses  icy, 
Ces   vermeillettes   roses 
Sont  freschement  ecloses, 
Et  ces  ceillets  aussi. 

De    vostre    doulce    haleine 
Eventez  ceste  plaine 
Eventez  ce  sejour; 
Ce  pendant  que  j'ahanne 
A  mon  ble  que  je   vanne 
A  la  chaleur   du  jour. 

This  may  be   translated  as   follows: 
FROM  A  WINNOWER  OF  GRAIN  TO  THE  WINDS 

Nimble  troop,   to  you 

That  on  light  pinion  through 
The  world  forever  pass, 
And  with  a   murmuring  sweet 
Where  shade  and  verdure  meet 
Toss  gently  leaf  and  grass, 


180 


NOTES 


I   give   these  violets, 
Lilies    and    flowerets, 
And  roses  here  that  blow; 
All  these  red-blushing  roses 
Whose  freshness  now  uncloses, 
And  these  rich  pinks  also. 

With  your  soft  breath  now  deign 
To  fan  the  spreading  plain, 
And  fan,  too,  this  retreat, 
Whilst  I  with  toil  and  strain 
Winnow  my  golden  grain 
In  the  day's  scorching  heat. 

Andrew    Lang's    beautiful    version    as    taken    from    his 
'Ballads  and  Lyrics  of  Old  France"  (1872),  is  as  follows: 

HYMN  TO  THE  WINDS 

The  winds  are  invoked  by  the  Winnowers  of  Corn 
Du    Bellay,    1550. 

To  you,  troop  so  fleet, 

That  with  winged  wandering  feet, 

Through  the  wide  world  pass,. 
And  with  soft  murmuring 
Toss  the  green  shades  of  spring 

In  woods  and  grass, 
Lily  and  violet 
I  give,  and  blossoms  wet, 

Roses  and  dew; 


181 


NOTES 

This  branch  of  blushing  roses, 
Whose  fresh  bud  uncloses, 

Wind-flowers  too. 
Ah,  winnow  with  sweet  breath, 
Winnow  the  holt  and  heath 

Round  this  retreat; 
Where  all  the  golden  morn 
We  fan  the  gold  o'  the  corn, 

In  the  sun's  heat. 

We  are  told  that  the  poet  accompanied  his  relative 
Cardinal  Du  Bellay  to  Rome  in  1552,  where  he  remained 
for  nearly  five  years.  Among  his  poems  is  a  series  of 
sonnets  addressed  to  one  Mademoiselle  de  Viole. 

THE  CONQUERORS  (page  113). 

Cipango's  mines  in  rich  perfection  bear, 

"Zipangu  is  a  very  large  island  on  the  east,  and  fifteen 
hundred  miles  distant  from  the  shores  of  Mangi.  The 
people  of  the  island  are  of  a  white  complexion  and  of 
gentle  manners,  and  have  a  king  of  their  own.  They  have 
gold  in  plenty,  as  few  merchants  resort  thither,  and  no 
gold  is  allowed  to  be  exported.  Such  as  have  traded  to 
this  island  speak  of  the  King's  palace  as  being  covered 
over  with  gold  as  our  churches  are  with  lead,  and  that 
the  windows  and  floors  are  likewise  of  gold.  It  abounds 
in  gold  and  is  amazingly  rich." — Travels  of  Marco  Polo. 
Marco  Polo  does  not  pretend  that  he  saw  these  things. 
Indeed,  he  says,  "But  I  will  now  leave  Zipangu,  be- 
cause I  never  was  there,  as  it  is  not  subject  to  the 
Khan."  What  he  describes  as  having  seen  with  his  own 


182 


NOTES 

eyes  is  now  deemed  to  be  veracious.    Zipangu  or  Cipango 
is   doubtless  the  modern   Japan. 

THE  ANCESTOR  (page  117). 

Evidently  descriptive  of  a  portrait  in  enamel  of  the 
poet's  ancestor  by  Claudius  Popelin.  The  sonnet  on  page 
107  celebrates  Popelin's  work  in  that  field  of  art.  The 
sonnets  on  pages  118  and  119  are  in  honor  of  this  same 
ancestor  —  the  founder  of  Cartagena. 

Sierras,  Terra  Firma,  Islands  fair; 

At  this  time  the  whole  of  South  America  was  known 
by  the  name  of  Terra  Firma. 

TO  A  DEAD  CITY  (page  120). 

Since  Drake's  fell  heretics'  rapacious  raid 
Thy  lonely  walls  have  mouldered  in  decay, 
And,   like  some  collar  gloomed  by  pearls  of  gray, 
Show  gaping  holes  by  Pointis'   cannon   made. 
Drake  captured  Cartagena  by  assault  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  year  1585,  Gates,  of  Drake's  party,  telling  us  that 
"in  this   furious  entree   the   Lieutenant-General   slue   with 
his  owne  hands  the  chief  ensigne-bearer  of  the  Spaniards, 
who   fought  very   manfully   to   his  life's   end."    The   Eng- 
lish kept  possession  of  the  place  for  six  weeks,  and  then 
surrendered  it  on  payment  of  a  ransom  of  one  hundred 
and  ten  thousand  ducats,  to  which  was  added  a  thousand 
crowns  for  the  surrender  of  the  priory  or  abbey  situated 
a   short   distance    from   the   city.     Cates   deemed   this   ran- 
som sufficient,   "inasmuch  as,"   among  other  reasons,   "we 
have  taken  our  full  pleasure,  both  in  the  uttermost  sack- 


183 


NOTES 

ing  and  spoiling  of  all  their  household  goods  and  mer- 
chandise, as  also  in  that  we  have  consumed  and  ruined 
a  great  part  of  their  town  with  fire." — Barrow's  Life  of 
Drake,  pp.  199-203. 

Jean-Bernard  Pointis,  Baron  de  Desjeans,  who  was  born 
in  1645  and  died  in  1707,  was  a  distinguished  naval  officer 
of  France.  He  had  command  of  the  expedition  against 
Cartagena  in  1697.  He  carried  the  city  and  was  wounded 
in  the  attack  upon  it. 

VISION  OF  KHEM— II  (page  124). 

Behind  the  Bari,  which  the  priests  convey, 
Of  Ammon-Ra,   the  sun's  almighty   head; 

The  Bari  was  a  sacred  boat  in  which  the  priests  bore 
the  image  of  a  God  or  Gods.  If  on  land,  the  boat  was 
generally  borne  on  the  shoulders  of  the  bearers.  In  the 
present  instance  the  Bari,  with  the  image  of  the  God 
Ammon-Ra  seated  in  it,  is  conveyed  by  the  priests  at  the 
head  of  the  imaginary  procession. 

"Ammon  was  the  great  God  of  Thebes,  the  southern 
Egyptian  capital.  According  to  Manetho,  his  name  signi- 
fied 'concealment'  or  'that  which  is  concealed';  and  this 
meaning  is  confirmed  both  by  the  fact,  which  is  now  cer- 
tain, that  the  root  anon,  in  the  hieroglyphics  has  the 
signification  'to  veil,'  'to  hide,'  and  also  by  statements  in 
the  religious  poems  of  the  Egyptians.  We  may  there- 
fore safely  adopt  the  view  of  Plutarch,  that  the  original 
notion  of  Ammon  was  that  of  a  concealed  or  secret  god, 
one  who  hid  himself  and  whom  it  was  difficult  to  find;  or, 
in  other  words,  that  the  mysterious  and  inscrutable  nature 


184 


NOTES 

of  the  Deity  was  the  predominant  idea  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  first  worshipped  God  under  this  name.  * 
Originally  Ammon  was  quite  distinct  from  Ra,  'the  Sun,' 
no  two  ideas  being  more  absolutely  opposed  than  those 
of  'a  concealed  god'  and  of  the  great  manifestation  of 
Divine  power  and  great  illuminator  of  all  things  on  earth, 
the  solar  luminary.  But  from  the  time  of  the  eighteenth 
dynasty  a  union  of  the  two  Divinities  took  place,  and 
Ammon  was  worshipped  thenceforth  almost  exclusively 
as  Ammon-Ra,  and  was  depicted  with  the  solar  orb  on 
his  head."— R awlin son's  Ancient  Egypt.  This  god  became 
the  head  of  the  Egyptian  pantheon,  so  that  finally  he  was 
to  the  Egyptian  what  Zeus  was  to  the  Greek  and  Jupiter 
to  the  Roman. 

Oscar    Wilde,    in    his    finely    imaginative    poem,    "The 
Sphinx,"  sings  thus  of  the  God  Ammon: 
With  Syrian  oils  his  brows  were  bright:   and  widespread 

as  a  tent  at  noon 
His  marble  limbs  made  pale  the  moon  and  lent  the  day  a 

larger  light. 
His  long  hair  was  nine  cubits'  span  and  coloured  like  that 

yellow  gem 
Which  hidden  in  their  garment's  hem  the  merchants  bring 

from  Kurdistan. 

His   face  was  as  the  must  that  lies  upon  a  vat  of   new- 
made   wine: 
The  seas  could  not  insapphirine  the  perfect  azure  of  his 

eyes. 
His  thick  soft  throat  was  white  as  milk  and  threaded  with 

thin  veins  of  blue: 


185 


NOTES 

And  curious  pearls  like  frozen  dew  were  broidered  on  his 

flowing   silk. 
On  pearl   and  porphyry  pedestalled   he  was  too  bright  to 

look  upon: 
For  on  his  ivory  breast  there  shone  the  wondrous  ocean 

emerald, 
That    mystic    moonlit    jewel    which    some    diver    of    the 

Colchian  caves 
Had  found  beneath   the  blackening  waves  and  carried  to 

the   Colchian   witch. 
Before     his     gilded      galiot     ran     naked     vine  -  wreathed 

corybants, 
And  lines   of  swaying  elephants  knelt  down  to   draw  his 

chariot, 
And  lines   of  swarthy   Nubians   bore  up   his   litter   as  he 

rode 
Down   the  great  granite-paven   road  between  the   nodding 

peacock-fans. 
The  merchants  brought  him  steatite   from   Sidon   in   their 

painted  ships: 
The  meanest  cup  that  touched  his  lips  was  fashioned  from 

a  chrysolite. 
The   merchants  brought   him    cedar-chests   of   rich   apparel 

bound  with  cords: 
His   train   was   borne  by    Memphian   lords :    young   kings 

were  glad  to  be  his  guests.       - 
Ten   hundred   shaven   priests   did   bow    to    Ammon's    altar 

day  and  night, 
Ten  hundred  lamps  did  wave  their  light  through  Ammon's 

carven  house  —  and  now 


186 


NOTES 

Foul    snake    and    speckled    adder    with    their    young    ones 

crawl  from  stone  to  stone, 
For  ruined  is  the  house  and  prone  the  great  rose-marble 

monolith ! 
Wild    ass    or    trotting    jackal    comes    and    couches    in    the 

mouldering  gates: 
Wild  satyrs  call  unto  their  mates  across  the  fallen  fluted 

drums. 
And    on    the    summit    of    the    pile    the    blue-faced    ape    of 

Horus  sits 
And    gibbers    while    the    figtree    splits    the    pillars    of    the 

peristyle. 

THE  SAMURAI   (page  128). 

This  was  a  man  with  two  swords. 

A  fully  equipped  Samurai  had  two  swords  —  a  long  one 
with  which  to  do  his  fighting,  and  a  short  one  for  the 
hara-kiri. 

THE  DAIMIO   (page  129). 

Where  burns  its  satin  with  a  crimson  sun. 
The   flag  of  Japan  is  white,   with  a  large  crimson   disk 
in  the  centre. 

THE  CENTURY  FLOWER  (page  131). 

Herexlia,  in  this  sonnet,  has  chosen  to  follow  the 
erroneous  notion,  held  by  many,  of  the  Century  Plant 
not  blooming  until  it  has  lived  for  a  hundred  years;  and 
likewise,  as  is  not  unusual,  he  has  confused  the  Agave 


187 


NOTES 

with  the  Aloe.    In  fact,  some  of  our  dictionaries  call  the 
Agave  the  American  Aloe. 

On  this  subject  Miss  Alice  Eastwood,  of  the  California 
Academy  of  Sciences,  has  been  kind  enough  to  write  me 
as  follows: 

"The  Aloe  of  Belles  Lettres,  like  the  deadly  Upas  Tree, 
exists  only  in  the  imagination  of  the  poets.  It  seems  to  be 
a  combination  of  Agave  or  Century  Plant,  the  Aloe,  and 
probably  a  species  of  Cactus. 

"The  confusion  arises  undoubtedly  from  the  similarity 
in  manner  of  growth  of  the  Agave  and  the  Aloe.  Both 
have  thick,  large,  stiff-p'ointed  leaves  in  a  rosette  at  the 
surface  of  the  ground  from  which  the  flowering  stem 
arises.  The  Agave  blooms  generally  in  from  ten  to  fifteen 
years.  The  flowering  stalk  at  first  resembles  an  immense 
green  asparagus.  It  rapidly  grows  and  soon  reaches  a 
height  of  from  ten  to  twenty  feet.  It  branches  like  a  huge 
candelabrum,  and  the  greenish  flowers  consist  chiefly  of 
the  organs  of  reproduction.  It  belongs  to  the  Amaryllis 
family.  The  Aloe  sends  up  a  comparatively  slender  stem, 
often  curving  gracefully,  sometimes  branching,  and  bear- 
ing numerous  red,  yellow  or  orange  flowers  in  a  spike 
or  raceme,  or  sometimes  densely  clustered  at  the  ends 
of  branchlets.  The  flowers  are  tubular  and  about  an  inch 
long,  usually  pendent.  It  blooms  often  and  belongs  to  the 
Lily  family. 

"Lowell,  in  'A  Fable  for  Critics,'  alludes  to  the  same 
superstition  in  the  part  beginning:  'Here  comes  Philothea,' 
etc." 

Nor  does  the  Century  Plant  bear  a  single  flower,  and 


188 


NOTES 

that  a  scarlet  one;  on  the  contrary,  it  bears  quite  a  num- 
ber (I  have  counted  as  many  as  twenty),  arranged  in  the 
fashion  of  a  candelabrum  and  green  in  color,  as  pointed 
out  by  Miss  Eastwood.  The  Century  Plant,  with  its 
candelabrum  of  green  blooms,  is  not  an  altogether  un- 
familiar object  in  the  gardens  of  California. 

The  truth  is,  Heredia  has  treated,  in  this  instance,  for 
poetic  purposes,  one  of  the  myths  of  the  vegetable  world, 
just  as  he  has  treated  other  myths  in  such  wonderful 
manner  in  his  other  sonnets.  And  the  poem  is,  indeed, 
beautiful,  particularly  in  view  of  its  suggested  thought  — 
the  non-realization  of  our  year-long  hopes  and  dreams. 

THE  FUNERAL  (page  136). 

To  Phocis'  lustrous  fanes  as  Pytho  there, 
Rock-bound  and  lightning-girdled,  ruled  alone. 

Pytho  was  the  ancient  name  of  Delphi,  the  capital  of 
Phocis.  Hence  the  priestess  who  delivered  the  oracular 
responses  at  Delphi  was  called  Pythia,  and  hence  the 
games  that  were  held  near  Delphi  were  called  the  Pythian 
games.  The  monuments  at  Delphi  got  to  be  of  great 
magnificence.  It  is  said  that  Nero  took  as  many  as 
seventy-five  thousand  statues  from  there  to  Rome. 

BRITTANY   (page  142). 

Voluptuous  Is  and  mighty  Occismor. 

Is  and  Occismor  were  two  old  cities  of  Brittany  which 
were  destroyed  by  extraordinary  tidal  waves  near  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century. 


189 


NOTES 

A  FLOWERY  SEA  (page  143). 

The  inundation  which  seems  to  have  furnished  the  sub- 
ject of  this  sonnet  may  have  been  produced  by  a  tidal 
wave  of  some  such  character  as  that  which  destroyed  in 
old  time  the  cities  of  Is  and  Occismor.  In  1904,  on  the 
second  of  February,  a  tidal  wave  swept  the  coast  of  Pen- 
march,  mentioned  in  the  sonnet  on  page  149.  One-third 
of  the  commune  of  Penmarch  was  submerged,  and  an 
immense  amount  of  damage  done. 

ARMOR  (page  148). 

"Sell  euz  ar-mor." 

This  is  in  the  Armoric  dialect,  and  literally  translated 
is,  We  have  sight  upon  the  sea;  or,  as  we  might  say  in 
English,  Behold  the  sea!  Armor  is  from  ar,  upon;  and 
mor,  sea  — hence  Armorica. 

A  RISING  SEA  (page  149). 

Larousse,  in  his  Universal  Dictionary  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  says  of  the  coast  of  Raz  (mentioned  in  several 
of  the  sonnets):  "La  cote  du  Raz  est  extremement  dan- 
gereuse,  herissee  d'ecueils  longtemps  funestes  aux  marins, 
jusqu'a  1'etablissement  d'un  phare  construit  il  y  a  quelques 
annees  a  cote  d'un  menhir.  Le  detroit  (raz  en  breton) 
qui  separe  le  cap  de  1'ile  de  Sein  est  d'une  traversee 
extremement  penible,  a  cause  d'un  violent  courant  qui 
se  porte  entre  le  cap  et  1'ile  de  Sein.  De  la  1'adage 
breton  dont  voici  la  traduction  litterale:  Jamais  homme  n'a 
passe  le  Raz  sans  avoir  peur  ott  mal. 


190 


NOTES 

"C'est  au  moment  d'une  tempete  qu'il  faut  visiter  le  bee 
du  Raz,"  dit  M.  Pol  de  Courcy.  "Quoique  eleve  de  72 
metres  au-dessus  de  la  mer,  le  promontoire  semble  a  chaque 
instant  pret  a  s'engloutir  sous  les  vagues;  une  ecume 
salee  vous  couvre,  et  des  rugissements  horribles  dans 
les  fcavernes  des  rochers  etourdissent  a  donner  le 
vertige." 

(The  coast  of  Raz  is  extremely  dangerous,  as  it  bristles 
with  reefs  which  for  a  long  time  were  fatal  to  mariners 
until  the  establishment  of  a  lighthouse  constructed  some 
years  ago  near  a  menhir.  The  strait  (raz  in  the  Breton) 
which  separates  the  cape  from  the  isle  of  Sein  is  very 
difficult  in  the  passage  by  reason  of  a  violent  current 
which  runs  between  the  cape  and  the  isle  of  Sein.  There 
is  a  Breton  adage  of  which  the  following  is  a  literal 
translation:  No  man  ever  passed  Raz  without  feeling  fear 
or  suffering  harm. 

"It  is  at  the  time  of  tempest  when  one  should  visit  the 
beak  of  Raz,"  says  M.  Pol  de  Courcy.  "Although  at  an 
elevation  of  some  72  metres  above  the  sea,  it  seems  as 
though  at  each  moment  the  promontory  might  be  engulfed 
in  the  waves;  a  salted  foam  covers  you,  and  the  horrible 
roarings  in  the  caverns  of  the  rocks  are  so  deafening  as 
to  make  one  dizzy.") 

ON  A  BROKEN  MARBLE  (page  158). 

The  Sonnets  of  the  Trophies,  which  begin  with  "Obli- 
ion,"  very  appropriately  close  with  "On  a  Broken  Marble" 
—  the  statue  of  the  God  Terminus  in  a  state  of  wreck. 


191 


NOTES 

HEREDIA  DEAD  (page  161). 

Jose-Maria  de  Heredia  was  born  on  the  22d  day  of 
November,  1842,  on  a  coffee  plantation  (La  Fortuna) 
in  the  Sierra  Madre  Mountains,  near  Santiago  de  Cuba, 
and  died  on  the  3d  day  of  October,  1905,  at  the  Chateau 
de  Bourdonne,  in  Seine-et-Oise,  France. 

His  ancestry  on  the  father's  side  is  traceable  to  one  of 
those  daring  Spanish  Dons  that  made  such  famous  and 
terrible  history  in  the  sixteenth  century  —  his  ancestor 
having  been  one  of  the  founders  of  Cartagena.  This  is 
made  brilliantly  lustrous  in  the  eight  sonnets  constituting 
the  Conquerors'  series  of  his  Trophies. 

His  mother  was  a  Frenchwoman,  and  at  eight  years  of 
age  he  went  to  France  for  his  education,  which,  having 
been  partly  achieved,  he  returned  to  Cuba  for  study  at 
the  University  of  Havana;  but  he  subsequently  returned 
to  France  for  his  permanent  home,  his  residence  having 
been  taken  up  at  Paris,  where,  in  1897,  he  was  made 
librarian  of  the  Arsenal  Library. 

As  Edmund  Gosse  well  says,  he  was  no  more  Spanish 
than  was  Rossetti  Italian.  < 

His  first  verses  were  published  in  1862,  and  from  time 
to  time  there  were  publications  of  his  in  the  Revue  des 
deux  Mondes,  and  other  periodicals;  but  it  was  not  until 
1893  that  his  Trophies  burst  upon  the  world  of  letters 
in  all  the  aggregation  of  their  perfection  and  splendor. 

At  the  first  vacancy  after  this  publication  he  was 
elected  to  the  Academy,  he  having  defeated  Zola  for  that 
honor;  nor  has  any  challenge  ever  been  made  of  the 
entire  fitness  of  his  selection,  though  the  work  which 


192 


NOTES 

prompted   it  consisted   of  but  one   hundred   and  eighteen 
sonnets. 

His  three  daughters  married  three  men  of  letters,  M. 
Henri  de  Regnier,  M.  Pierre  Louys  and  M.  Maurice 
Maindron;  and  at  least  one  of  these  daughters  (Mme.  de 
Regnier)  has  written  poems  and  novels  of  great  merit. 


193 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

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